Is
it OK for some to benefit from the resources and opportunities
that nature and civilization provides, without consideration
for how use of these can benefit all? Or, is creating
means of resource use that will nurture social justice,
economic stability, and human development a necessary
foundation for accelerating our progress on all aspects
of sustainability?
We believe that only with a change
in human consciousness can society truly alter the
perilous
path we are
on. Society’s awareness is not in synchrony
with the way we need to proceed. A change is in order
for our awareness and human experience to support
individual and collective transformation toward promoting
a shift in consciousness that transforms present
global conditions into a world grounded in freedom,
wisdom, and care: balancing personal and collective
wisdom in a way that manifests our highest capacities.
We are encouraged by the statement: “The greatest
discovery of my generation is that human beings can
alter their lives by altering their attitudes of
mind” (William James). If
our mindset can change, sustainability will gain!
Embracing
the complexity of sustainability calls
for
understanding it at a new level of consciousness.
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Leveraging
change in human consciousness starts with an
understanding that
the emotion of
fear drives
much of our decision making in the world and is
something we all possess. It is a barrier to
the discovery
of interrelatedness, interconnectedness, and interdependencies
between all life forms and therefore a barrier
to sustainability. An alternative approach for
change
is to find out what people really care about, how
they define “genuine wealth” and, in
so doing, assist in finding common values in the
community, which enhances the sense of connection
to one another and therefore reduces fear. It is
at this point that people are ready to create and
commit to a vision of the future based upon multiple
ways of knowing – a kind of intuitive consciousness – direct
and immediate access to knowledge beyond what is
available to our normal senses and the power of
reason.
It is impossible to ignore
the barrier of fear in community development.
Instead, we must
deal with
this reality head-on by understanding that each moment
of our lives is an open space in which we either
expand our care for people and concern for things
or shrivel in fear – fear of the unknown; fear
of competition; fear of looking bad, not good; fear
of loss – identity, money, recognition, fame.
Each moment is a definitive window through which
we greet the world with an expansive heart or a knotted
stomach.
For example, consider the
emotion of “anger” – when
you are angry you have a choice – you can shrink
away from it in fright or you can embrace it with
an open heart. Give your fear some room to breathe – surround
it with care for others – tell the truth about
it – go so far as to regard it as sacred. When
people face the hard stuff and welcome it into their
lives, they become free of it. When we show care
for it just the way it is, instead of shrinking away
from it in fear, it changes before our eyes. And
this new perspective allows for the development of
our innate human potentials and creative capacities
as a foundation for collective transformation toward
a world grounded in freedom, wisdom, and care.
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