Conscious Evolution for the 21st century

CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Summary

Conscious social change is Conscious Evolution.

Change agents need to view desired social change in the context provided by the timescale of human evolution.

From this vantage point we see humans acquiring knowledge and experience about life and their place in the universe. This past represents a storehouse of hindsight on which modern change agents can draw in visioning the possible versions of human future.

Context
If the age of the Earth is taken to be a 24hr day, modern mankind appeared at two seconds to midnight. During these geo-seconds we have learned how to destroy ourselves and other species. We can also learn to design the good world we want. If we do not do this we won't like the one that will happen to us.

With Humankind, a species has appeared in evolution which can direct its own future. This is conscious evolution. On its behalf people of goodwill all over the world seek to foster social change to create, progressively, a better world. It is a realistic aim because this is the purpose of Life and evolution in general, and of Humankind in particular. By accepting the tasks implied, conscious evolution is initiated. The means for its realization is the store of knowledge and experience modern Humankind has been gathering during its slow but accelerating cultural evolution over the last 26,000 years*.

The first task is to survey this experience by classifying it within a holistic framework of 12 subjects which civilizations have recorded as of main concern to humans on Earth.

The basic assumptions underlying and inspiring commitment to conscious evolution
It is assumed as an article of faith that Humankind finds itself in a universe of abundance created and maintained by a benign intelligence for its own inscrutable purpose and for the fulfillment of all conscious entities choosing to participate in the unfoldment of this purpose. Humankind has a unique role within this scheme of things. Its evolution on earth is unfolding in a purposeful process that transcends the Darwinian theory of evolution. Within this process, the human individual, as a self-reflective unit of intelligence, is of paramount importance. Our day-to-day lives, as individuals, thus have meaning within the cosmic evolutionary process. This indicates the possibilities for a fulfilling life of co-operation with evolution. Indeed, we are evolution. It is a here-and-now reality of life. It seeks to actualise its potentiality through every man, woman and child as conscious, self-observing units of awareness. Herein lies the magnificent purpose of being alive and being human in a self-evolving universe.

Action
One of the most potent means of promoting social change is a network of experimental communities of the future. (EPCOT? What a let-down! What is now known as Disney Land was originally billed as a project to build an Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow.). The principles that characterize the good world will be tested and established here through study and practice. The framework of this experiment in consciousness is the areas of human experience viewed in a holistic way. The 'laws of good life' will be clarified and developed, tried and improved, within the a network of groups, always testing theory by practice and improving practice through modified theory. A great deal of work will have to be undertaken by groups, subgroups, working parties, etc., drawn to activities in specific fields. But it will bring immense rewards to individuals who undertake it and to the future world that will benefit. If the tasks are intelligently shared out as they get discovered and specified, and if the motivation springs from desire and dedication to finding better ways of living together, conscious evolution can become Humankind's contribution to the unfolding Cosmic Story.

Where can we start?
It is true, indeed, that 'a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step'. This first, indispensable step is the conviction that the world can be changed and needs to be changed.

The second step will be to spread this conviction among the ranks of 'common' people in society. Only the common people of good-will have the power to create the public demand necessary to ensure that leaders and governments take notice, and change their ways. This will not be an easy task at first. For too long the ordinary citizen has been led to believe that society must be run by experts.

The citizens, 'we the people', can take courage from the fact that they are not alone. There are many respected thinkers to help in this great work. Willis Harman, for example, in his book, GLOBAL MIND CHANGE - The Promise of the Last Years of the Twentieth Century, demonstrates that powerful institutions inside democracies persisted only because they have 'legitimacy', which comes from the perceptions of their citizens. 'People give legitimacy and they can take it away. A challenge to legitimacy is probably the most powerful force for change to be found in history.' To the empowering principle that people can change the world by granting or withholding legitimacy. Harman adds the principle that people can change the world by changing their internal image of reality.

What now?
This 'manifesto' is meant to stimulate discussion. Whether you agree, disagree or are not sure, decide to meet others to discuss some or all of the ideas here. Democracy is deeply rooted in talk. Any 'doing' can only be the result of thinking and talking.** Action grows out of thinking and talking as plants and trees grow from the earth. Without good earth, plants cannot flourish but become stunted or die. The same goes for action: true democracy cannot flourish without the soil provided by sustained discourse among citizens about issues essential to the healthy life of their society. Action is necessary but not sufficient; knowledge and understanding is not sufficient but necessary. Meet, discuss, teach, learn and understand; then plan and execute action. This is all that can and need be done.

http://goodworld.lightnet.co.uk/newlife.htm
 

*Humanity of the 21st century is experiencing not only the transition from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age but the beginning of the next Great or Platonic Year of about 26,000 years.

**Unfortunately, talking is devalued in the eyes of many “doers” when “talkers” put off indefinitely the task of coming to firm conclusions as a necessary step towards action.

Conscious Evolution -- challenging zaadzlanders

Hmmm…

I obviously need a pr agent. On second thought, it is not me but the vision that is holding my hopes captive, that needs it.

Where are the builders of humankind's bright new home? The social change movement seems to be full or architects designing their own visions of that edifice but no building on the ground seems to be appearing.

I suggest that the foundation of that concrete social reality includes the implementation of a very practical political element, a guaranteed and unconditional subsistence income for every human–rich and poor–born into our physical world. This, in effect, implies a declaration of the most basic human right, the right (unconditionally) to the means of a decent standard of life.
Currently, that right is said to exist via the right to work (right to earning an income). This is not an unconditional “right to life”. It is contingent on being useful to other human beings, inviting temptations to exploit one another.

A true, unconditional right to life is, in fact, the next step in social/cultural evolution for us humans. And its financial cost has been calculated in some UN research paper as being a very small fraction of the expenditure the world spends on armaments and related military expenditure. So a guaranteed subsistence income to cover the “bio-needs”, and needs that ensures “psycho-spiritual” health, is not a utopian pipedream. Resistance to its implementation comes from conscious or unconscious political fear of loosing a fundamental control over individuals that a hidden ruling minority feels the need to maintain.

Without this step of “freeing the spirit” (the spirit is not free now in physical incarnation), human evolution will end up in a dead end. That dead end, to be more specific, is arrested development in an evolutionary backwater or the destruction of the current edition of the human species. This is because the individual is the unit (the gene) of  human evolution which, in the aggregate, sums to species evolution.

Resisting this evolutionary push in human social evolution gives rise to all the visible threats (like human induced climate change, terrorism, famines, resource depletion, etc.,) which are but the tips of many icebergs. These threats could be dissolved by eliminating the socio-systemic design faults which are themselves the result of social mores and institutions not adapting to the fact that our scientific and technological power have an evolutionary meaning.

“What is the meaning of our powers [to destroy or enhance life]?” asked Barbara Marx Hubard many decades ago. The answer she (and many others) havs found was, “Conscious Evolution”, the burden or privilege of our very young species which knows that it knows.

The choice is ours. It is, in the words of Buckmister Fuller, “Utopia or Oblivion”.

Re: Conscious Evolution for the 21st century

With humankind Gaia has embarked on her first experiment to acquire consciousness.

It is up to us to ensure that we make the grade and that Gaia does not have to write us off as a filure and embark on another attempt.

There is time – before the sun goes out – for at least a hundred tries (depending on how one calculates with the timescale Gaia uses).

It would be a great pity, though, from our perspective, if our edition of an intelligent, self-aware, morally competent species proved a failure. Gaia will not mind – she will just start again. Gaia needs no saving; it is US who needs saving from our own lack of vision.

The work of Riane Eisler and David Loye is one of the best practical guides (“practical in the sense of “applied spirituality”} to action needed for ensuring that our species survives into the 22nd century.