The Gaia Community College » peace

Evolving Spirituality

Biophile — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:37:24 +0000

Albert Einstein once stated that we can’t solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used to create them. If we throw in another gem from him that “Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding”, then we are well on our way to addressing an essential ingredient in any recipe for sustainable, conscious growth and development, and that is the nature of our fundamental relationship with ourselves.

This train of thought also makes me want to invoke one of my favorite Thomas Berry statements that we will only achieve peace with each other once we have established (an understanding that brings) peace with the earth. All of these thoughts seem to point in the general direction of not continuing to have complete faith that our technologies will solve all of our problems and get us out of the mess that we are in, but that we have to take a complete step back from our current course and learn how to imagine new kinds of beneficial relationships with ourselves, each other, and the world that we live in. After all isn’t that what spirituality should be all about?

There are a growing number of visionaries who are exploring this train of thought in increasingly integral and beautiful ways, and who have fully taken to heart the implications of developing a world-view that is thoroughly aligned with an evolutionary perspective and all that it implies. It is an exciting and vital conversation developing at the forefront of awakening communities, and fortunately for us, there is a growing collection of recently recorded dialogues exploring just what this means and how we might implement these insights in our daily lives. And best of all, access to these audio archives is free, which I hope is in the best spirit of encouraging the “we are all in this together” realization. After all, it is precisely when we are in service to each other that we begin to embody this emerging community consciousness a la Thomas Berry and his quest to establish mutually enhancing relationships.

There are three efforts along these lines that I would like to put forward as beneficial and inspiring contributions to this ongoing awakening, and I have been interacting with them and can vouch for their authenticity (and the fact that they are indeed free without any strings and the utmost of respect for your privacy). I should also make note for the record that I do not have any affiliation with any of these organizations and am putting these out there because I have experienced them as genuinely inspiring.

The first one is “Awakening the Impulse to Evolve ~ The Birth of Evolutionary Spirituality“.

The second: “The Sacred Awakening Series” featuring 40 of the worlds prominent spiritual teachers.

And the third, “Women on the Edge of Evolution” with 21 of the world’s leading spiritual luminaries, thinkers, artists, and agents for positive change.

I sincerely hope that you find inspiration and insight within some or all of these offerings, and that choosing to walk through this doorway will bring us closer to healing the deep divide between our hearts and our minds.
Always Love,
Eric

Science of the Heart

Biophile — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:17:59 +0000

Researchers are increasingly becoming aware that the heart is vastly more than a pump, that it is in fact full of neurons and generates a powerful electromagnetic field. I often think of the quote “Be the change you want to see in the world” from Gandhi when I think of human-earth relations, because what we forge within our hearts becomes the basis for how we interact with the world. Along those lines I offer this one minute short from the folks at the Institute of Noetic Sciences about heart science.

This is a beautiful example of just how powerfully our hearts influence our interactions with everything. One of my favorite Thomas Berry quotes also comes to mind ~ “Peace with each other through peace with the earth”, meaning that unless we are able to perceive, appreciate, and inhabit a place of peace within ourselves towards the earth that our chances of establishing peaceful relations within human communities are pretty slim. Of course it all starts within…

Always love,
Eric

The Charter for Compassion

Biophile — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:09:31 +0000

Originally envisioned by Karen Armstrong as her wish for winning the 2008 TED prize, The Charter for Compassion is a gorgeous example of “a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life”. (quote from their website) I fell in love with the initiative as it seems that any energy that nurtures such purposeful expression of higher ideals is worthy of note.

If there is any one activity purposefully engaged in that has the power to help heal and transform our world into the one envisioned when Thomas Berry spoke about mutually enhancing relationships, compassion must be it.

Peace to you and yours,
Eric