Rev. Linda Pendergrass, my first Unity minister, opened doorways I'd explored - but I didn't know others were traveling. That was in the mid-80's and people were just awakening to the ideas that are so ubiquitous today. Back then - at least in Dallas-Ft Worth - Border's had no section for metaphysical books. And if we wanted to read something of a spiritual nature during a flight, we wrapped it in a book jacket to avoid unwanted comments.
Anyway, Linda introduced me to the idea of "living the question." Instead of looking for immediate answers, which bring closure, questions provide a lens of curiosity and wonderment through which to view the world. Questions open our minds and our hearts to new possibilities.
Bob Dylan looks like a prophet more than ever. Do you remember his words, "the times, they are a changin"? Indeed. Walk into a Starbucks; check out the news via the internet; visit the hairdresser; watch what's happening in our workplaces; notice how families are shifting their budgets and spending more time with one another. "The times, they are a changin'.
Most of us have a love-hate relationship with change. So as not to be caught in the fear that is present around us, it's essential that we stay open so we see what is being born. Yes, systems are breaking down, but new ones will emerge. Remember the old metaphysical adage that says, "Where one door closes, another opens." So one question is "Which doors are opening?" Living the question is one way to see what's being born. Simply ask "what is being born" throughout your day and see what you discover.
By the way, certain types of questions are more powerful than others. "Why" questions are least useful in this context. They draw us into our analytical nature and deeper into the quagmire. Questions that ask "what" or reveal your best qualities and characteristics open doors.
Here are three wonderful questions: I'd love to hear any of y'all's responses!
1. When have I been fearless in my life?
2. Who am I called to be for these times?” This is about finding the bigger you that is called into the world to face the challenges of systemic collapse and bring the future into being.
3. “What name do I call myself?” This question invites us to choose a name for ourselves that's big enough for our whole life now. This is a name beyond who we are and who we have been. Akin to the Native American Vision Quest where a life path is revealed, a new direction and thus, a new name ... or the Hebrew tradition [Old Testament] where a new name is given to represent a new consciousness.
Responses, anyone?
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Humanity Ascending
Barbara Marx Hubbard, futurist and founder of the Foundation of Conscious Evolution (www.barbaramarxhubbard.com), asks "What is the meaning of our newly acquired powers that is good?"
Her response comes in a 7-part series called "Humanity Ascending."
OUR STORY is a movie that spans the history of the evolutionary journey of our species from the big bang to current times, where we find ourselves precariously standing at the edge of conscious evolution or self-destruction. Our storyteller, Barbara Marx Hubbard, provides the unique perspective of viewing our history through what she terms as "evolutionary eyes" as the unfoldment of a fourteen billion year journey of transformation that is now pressing us forward to give birth to a new, never before seen, universal humanity. This compelling vision of hope sees us at an evolutionary edge where the old world is dying and the new world is being born.
I first heard Barbara speak of evolutionary consciousness in the early 90's. "Humanity Ascending" expresses a startling new level of clarity and with it a message of hope for the accelerated changes happening in our world today. This first installment in her series is so inspiring that I viewed it three times in succession.
An evolutionary perspective pulls the focus waaaaaay out, providing a sense of meaning and purpose for our experiences. Barbara leaves no doubt that we are at a great turning in evolution and that the stakes are high for the choices we are making now. She describes other great turnings in the 14 billion year journey since the Big Bang. Great turnings are times when a quantum leap occurs in the world of form and an entirely new creation springs forth i.e. no life to life; single cell to multi-cell organisms. Barbara leaves no doubt that at the core of evolutionary change, there is a divine design. She makes a strong case that God Mind guides the whole process. While painting a picture of the potential consequences for our choices, she reminds us that this is a friendly universe. Barbara reveals that more and more people are awakening to their spiritual nature and discovering how to listen to the divine core that has been guiding change since the Big Bang.
In short, Barbara paints a vision strong enough to pull us forward during these changing times. It is a vision of co-creation. And it is a vision of hope. We can be pulled by a vision or pushed by pain. Which will you choose?
Her response comes in a 7-part series called "Humanity Ascending."
OUR STORY is a movie that spans the history of the evolutionary journey of our species from the big bang to current times, where we find ourselves precariously standing at the edge of conscious evolution or self-destruction. Our storyteller, Barbara Marx Hubbard, provides the unique perspective of viewing our history through what she terms as "evolutionary eyes" as the unfoldment of a fourteen billion year journey of transformation that is now pressing us forward to give birth to a new, never before seen, universal humanity. This compelling vision of hope sees us at an evolutionary edge where the old world is dying and the new world is being born.
I first heard Barbara speak of evolutionary consciousness in the early 90's. "Humanity Ascending" expresses a startling new level of clarity and with it a message of hope for the accelerated changes happening in our world today. This first installment in her series is so inspiring that I viewed it three times in succession.
An evolutionary perspective pulls the focus waaaaaay out, providing a sense of meaning and purpose for our experiences. Barbara leaves no doubt that we are at a great turning in evolution and that the stakes are high for the choices we are making now. She describes other great turnings in the 14 billion year journey since the Big Bang. Great turnings are times when a quantum leap occurs in the world of form and an entirely new creation springs forth i.e. no life to life; single cell to multi-cell organisms. Barbara leaves no doubt that at the core of evolutionary change, there is a divine design. She makes a strong case that God Mind guides the whole process. While painting a picture of the potential consequences for our choices, she reminds us that this is a friendly universe. Barbara reveals that more and more people are awakening to their spiritual nature and discovering how to listen to the divine core that has been guiding change since the Big Bang.
In short, Barbara paints a vision strong enough to pull us forward during these changing times. It is a vision of co-creation. And it is a vision of hope. We can be pulled by a vision or pushed by pain. Which will you choose?
Profound Integrity
During times of rapid change, we are called to a deeper spirituality - to connect with that within us that is profoundly true. It is the essence present within each of us. This document from the Maliwada Human Development Training School in Maliwada, India was first introduced to me in the late 80's. It ratchets up the presumed meaning of the age old adage, "to your own self be true."
Profound Personal Integrity
We are going to visit the arena of Profound Humanness called "Integrity". Sometimes "integrity" is reduced to mean a kind of moral uprightness and steadfastness, in the sense of saying, "He has too much integrity to ever take a bribe."
But profound integrity goes far beyond this. Sometimes, in order to distinguish it from more limited popular usage, it is called "secondary integrity". This is the integrity which is not constrained by limited moralities, however well-intentioned. The integrity that is profound living is the singularity of thrust of a life committed and ordering every dimension of the self towards that commitment. Thus the self is in fact shaped by the self, and focused towards that commitment. You can say that an audacious creation of the self takes place in integrity, without which you are simply the creation of the various forces impacting you in your society.
Thus the basis of integrity is a destinal resolve - a resolve that chooses and sets your destiny and out of which your whole life is ordered. The object of that resolve is the ultimate decision of each person, and each person makes that choice, consciously or unconsciously. To do so with awareness is the height of man's responsibility. It is incarnate freedom. It is what real freedom looks like. When man has thus exercised his freedom he realizes that to be true to himself ever thereafter he has a unique position to look at the values of his society. He is no longer bound by the opinions and codes of his fellow-man, but reevaluates then on the basis of their impact on his destinal resolve.
Thus the man of integrity is continuously engaged in a societal transvaluation, a moving across the values of society and reinterpreting them in line with his life's thrust. It does not give him the liberty of ignoring his society, but his obligation transcends the conformity of living within the codes and mores of his society. Thus the man of profound integrity always seems to not quite fit with his fellow-men, but his actions always are appropriate for him, even to those who oppose him.
No matter how odd the man of profound integrity appears to his neighbors, he experiences himself as securely anchored. While he is very clear that this world is not his home, nevertheless he experiences himself as having found his native vale. He experiences an eternal at-one-ness, not so much with the currents and waves of activity around him, but with the deeper trends of history itself. Amid the flux of wavering to and fro that is so evident in others, he experiences an inexplicable rootedness, as though he has sunk a taproot deep into the foundations of the earth itself. Though he experiences his life as a long journey, even an endless journey, towards the object of his resolve, yet he never senses himself as a stranger on the journey It's as if he'd been there before. Original integrity is experienced primarily by this sense of at-one-ness.
Kierkegaard once wrote a book about this kind of integrity that he titled, "Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing". An ancient philosopher focused his wisdom around this integrity with the advice, "Know yourself, and to your own self, be true.""This document comes from the curriculum of the Maliwada Human Development Training School in Maliwada, India, which is a former program of ICA International They are not certain of the year, so there are no further details that they could provide for a citation."Above quoted from an email dated 13 Feb. 2008 sent to me by the Director of Development and Communications at The Institute of Cultural Affairs International (ICA) in Quebec, Canada. Give a gift that gives again at Working Gifts"
Profound Personal Integrity
We are going to visit the arena of Profound Humanness called "Integrity". Sometimes "integrity" is reduced to mean a kind of moral uprightness and steadfastness, in the sense of saying, "He has too much integrity to ever take a bribe."
But profound integrity goes far beyond this. Sometimes, in order to distinguish it from more limited popular usage, it is called "secondary integrity". This is the integrity which is not constrained by limited moralities, however well-intentioned. The integrity that is profound living is the singularity of thrust of a life committed and ordering every dimension of the self towards that commitment. Thus the self is in fact shaped by the self, and focused towards that commitment. You can say that an audacious creation of the self takes place in integrity, without which you are simply the creation of the various forces impacting you in your society.
Thus the basis of integrity is a destinal resolve - a resolve that chooses and sets your destiny and out of which your whole life is ordered. The object of that resolve is the ultimate decision of each person, and each person makes that choice, consciously or unconsciously. To do so with awareness is the height of man's responsibility. It is incarnate freedom. It is what real freedom looks like. When man has thus exercised his freedom he realizes that to be true to himself ever thereafter he has a unique position to look at the values of his society. He is no longer bound by the opinions and codes of his fellow-man, but reevaluates then on the basis of their impact on his destinal resolve.
Thus the man of integrity is continuously engaged in a societal transvaluation, a moving across the values of society and reinterpreting them in line with his life's thrust. It does not give him the liberty of ignoring his society, but his obligation transcends the conformity of living within the codes and mores of his society. Thus the man of profound integrity always seems to not quite fit with his fellow-men, but his actions always are appropriate for him, even to those who oppose him.
No matter how odd the man of profound integrity appears to his neighbors, he experiences himself as securely anchored. While he is very clear that this world is not his home, nevertheless he experiences himself as having found his native vale. He experiences an eternal at-one-ness, not so much with the currents and waves of activity around him, but with the deeper trends of history itself. Amid the flux of wavering to and fro that is so evident in others, he experiences an inexplicable rootedness, as though he has sunk a taproot deep into the foundations of the earth itself. Though he experiences his life as a long journey, even an endless journey, towards the object of his resolve, yet he never senses himself as a stranger on the journey It's as if he'd been there before. Original integrity is experienced primarily by this sense of at-one-ness.
Kierkegaard once wrote a book about this kind of integrity that he titled, "Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing". An ancient philosopher focused his wisdom around this integrity with the advice, "Know yourself, and to your own self, be true.""This document comes from the curriculum of the Maliwada Human Development Training School in Maliwada, India, which is a former program of ICA International They are not certain of the year, so there are no further details that they could provide for a citation."Above quoted from an email dated 13 Feb. 2008 sent to me by the Director of Development and Communications at The Institute of Cultural Affairs International (ICA) in Quebec, Canada. Give a gift that gives again at Working Gifts"
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