There is a lot of talk in the media about the sustainability of our environmental practices. This is a very important issue, and I believe very strongly that we need to care for the planet that gives us life. Samsara, the wheel of life and incarnation, is not an belief subscribed to by many Westerners, who tend to believe mortality is a one-shot deal. Even our cultural interpretation of karma anticipates reward or punishment within a single lifetime. The view that judgment occurs in a separate time and place from our mortal life provides no incentive to creating sustainable institutions and moral codes. I think this is no more evident than in present political and economic structures, and the various forms of backlash against them.
At the heart of the matter is the fact that our current structures are based on fear and compulsion. The only method employed to manage behavior, whether of individuals, governments, corporations or otherwise, is fear of consequence. That consequence may be punitive (e.g., fines, criminal penalties, legal action), it may take the form of competitive threat, or it could be the simple withholding of reward. In the worst cases it may even be fear for survival. Even the compassionate programs that exist only hedge against those perceived inevitabilities. They do nothing for the fear that so many people live their lives under. And it's basically been that way for all of recorded history.
And in all of recorded history, no civilization has survived. The evolution of economies and political systems has consisted of nothing more than refinements on previous failures. So what's the lesson here? Maybe it's time to stop doing the same thing hoping for a different result. (What's that definition of insanity again?)
That's a nice idea, but let's get back to reality here for a moment, shall we? There are a lot of smart and well-resourced people working very hard to preserve the system that made them so. And at no time in history have they had more tools at their disposal. Cynicism is broadcast on the airwaves 24 hours a day. Idealism is easily pigeon-holed as communism or science fiction, or simply discounted as unrealistic. And where social pressure has replaced outright tyranny as the primary source of fear (e.g. consumer nations), the "fear factor" is multiplied by the size of the population. And what is our response to this? We are sick, we are tired, we are disconnected, and no infinite supply of pharmaceuticals will heal that.
But people are waking up the possibility that there might be another way. Not an evolution of the past; no more putting lipstick on a pig and calling it a date. That does not solve the fundamental problem that humans have not learned how to make an advanced civilization last more than a thousand years or so. In Jared Diamond's book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, he talks about how the confluence of political, social and ecological missteps has led to the repeated failure of societies, and how we are facing the same challenges right now. While he is optimistic of our ability to reverse the trend, one cannot put down the book without feeling we've got a real uphill battle. And the root of it is that sustainability has no value in our structures of belief and governance.
So where does the sustainable society differ from what we know? First--and most importantly--the sustainable society is not subject to fear. Fear is driven by ignorance and impotence. We overcome these by raising our awareness, by experiencing the revolution of consciousness, and by exercising that awareness to take responsibility for our world. One thing we learn as consciousness expands is that we are not subject to the conditions of the world; we create the conditions of the world. The consciousness revolution knows that the world is exactly as hospitable or hostile as we make it. Fear demands resignation to powerlessness.
This does entail eliminating some of the resource-based conflicts that create conditions of survival fear (e.g. war and famine) under which so many are forced to live right now. This points to compassion as the motivating principle. Now, this is easily pointed to as idealistic and impossible, but so was the idea of a consensus-ruled society in feudal Europe. It is a matter of conceiving structures and institutions that are based on a different principle. We need to start conceiving those structures--a topic which I plan to explore in future posts.
Second, the sustainable society is no respecter of persons; it demands the right people for the job. This requires a radical change in how we choose our leaders. In an interview in What is Enlightenment?, Carlos Santana made the point very succinctly:
I think it's important to see a new parade of people who are in a position to change the consciousness--not just the same creepy old guard.
He certainly got the "creepy" and the "old" right. ;) But he's certainly right that a sustainable, compassion-based future demands a new sort of leader. Now, we don't want to risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater -- the mechanisms for selection may not have to change. But the methods of qualification definitely do. Skills in wealth-building, promotion, marketing and media appearances have nothing to do with the ability to lead a society. Those who favor military, political or economic aggression are simply unqualified for the job. The type of leadership required is very different from what we have been choosing. Steve Pavina touched on what this might mean in his recent blog entry, The Consciousness Revolution:
I'm hugely optimistic about this ongoing consciousness revolution, since I think it means that in the years ahead, we'll see emerging leaders who are truly dedicated to serving the greater good, people who have mastered the courage-compassion balance...We need leaders who speak only the truth, inspiring us by example to do the same, and we need to become the kind of global society that willingly puts highly conscious people in positions of genuine authority.
But this will not happen by itself, and it will not happen by wishing for it. It will only happen when people start waking up to the reality of our world and take responsibility for the course of humanity. It's a monumental task, but the great news is that this is within our present capabilities. The revolution is not made up of lone voices crying in the wilderness. Those with an interest in the expansion of human potential have greater tools at their disposal than ever before. No revolution in history has had the ability to disseminate itself so effectively. And not just in terms of spreading information, but in spreading the spirit of awakening. Not only can Carlos Santana try to raise consciousness through mass-distribution of his music, but anybody with an internet connection can become a blogger, a podcaster. And new media ways of communicating a message are there for the taking. And most importantly, they have the knowledge that there are many like-minded people out there who are intensely interested in elevating human existence to a higher level. Santana went on to say:
I'm happy to tell you that we're not alone; there are a lot of people who are resonating with this and want the same thing. I think the door is open; we want it now. We want spiritual revolution, consciousness revolution.
I don't believe that we can solve the world's problems by focusing on the world's problems. We need to raise our consciousness to a higher level where we can find real solutions to the challenges in front of us. We may not yet be able to conceive the nature of those answers, but when we collectively and individually experience the revolution of consciousness, the path will become clear. This is not a new idea, but it's an idea whose time has come. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Oxford Paperbacks), William Blake wrote:
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through' narrow chinks of his cavern.
Never has the need been greater for us to take our future into our own hands and fearlessly unveil the truth that is now obscured. The secret is that truth is ever-present; we simply close ourselves off to it, or look through "narrow chinks" so we only see a little bit of it. One day we will actually open the door and step through. That's not to say it's an easy task to get to the door on a collective, much less to cross the threshold. But what do we have to lose by reaching for something greater than we have achieved, not just in terms of improving on what the past has given us, but taking all that we have achieved and learned and raising it to a whole new level?
The distinction that the theory of biological evolution fails to capture is that biological evolution is not the only tool that humankind has to ensure their continuance and growth. Human consciousness gives us the ability, not only to evolve through extensions of ourselves such as technology, but to radically shift our paradigm and structure the world in ways that are only limited by our courage, our consciousness and our imagination. I hear my own sentiment in Santana's closing comments:
I think the door is open; we want it now. We want spiritual revolution, consciousness revolution.
