We live at an unprecedented time. Few people seem to understand (or even want to understand) the seriousness of the implications brought about by the unsustainable & unsatisfying ways in which most of us are living in modern day civilization.
There are though solutions to our apparent problems – some of them simple. The first solution requires that more of us recognize and appreciate that there is indeed a 'problem' to be solved, which requires a radical transformation in our thinking, values & actions. Taking the courageous step to consciously shift our own awareness in order to play a part in the process of positive change, and in doing so help to create a more harmonious world, is what we call Conscious Evolution.
Modern Day Living : An Inadequate
Answer To Life
The Lot of the Doubting
Individual
In the past we have been prisoners of tyrants and dictators and have needed to win our freedom in very real, easy to perceive, concrete terms. Now we in the modern industrialized countries are more or less free from this type of coercion, but nonetheless we are not free. We remain in psychological chains. We now need to free ourselves not from a slave ship, a prison, or concentration camp, but from our own minds, from our brains that have been brainwashed by the adverts, by the TV programmes & by the newspapers. The r-evolution now is not simply just a matter of taking to the streets - but must become a psychological one - a matter of freeing ourselves from our brainwashed minds.
Living Systems Theory shows us that the free flow of information & feedback is crucial to the healthy development of any living system. As our society can be considered a living system (and indeed part of a much larger planetary living system), then the free flow of information, through the free circulation of knowledge, ideas, experience, discoveries, insights, views and news, is crucial to the healthy sustainable development of our social & planetary living systems. New media developments are increasingly ‘freeing up’ access to information, whilst at the same time fostering a global awareness and connectivity. With the development of the internet & the ‘world-wide-web’ never before in human history has so much information been accessible to so many people. This new communications system has also made it easier than ever before to publish and share information, which allows an increasing number of people to peer beyond government propaganda, mass-media manipulation, corporate hype and consumer bullshit. This 'information revolution' means we can all examine for ourselves many of the issues neglected by the mainstream. This consequently gives rise to the potential of a world wide transformation on a scale that is unheard of in human history.
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It’s time to take seriously the idea that changes can be made today, in ways that will leave us more empowered tomorrow, and that a series of such changes can reach a kind of critical mass, and at the same time, sow the seeds and form the building blocks or embryo of a desirable future. It’s far past time for activists to get serious about creating self-sustaining and growing infrastructure, in a way that embody's their ideals and will leave the next generation of activists better equipped to press their demands, and assume an even greater degree of control over their lives and work. We therefore need to learn the skills necessary to govern ourselves, to organize key areas of production, to establish networks of communication and distribution, and to build a culture of resistance and co-operation. Creating a network of participatory institutions today is not an academic experiment. It may form the basis for a new society in the midst of the old, helping us now, but preparing us also for the day when we are finally able to cast off the shell of capitalism and live free.
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Radical Ecology emerges from a sense of crisis in the industrialized world and promotes a new awareness of our responsibilities to the rest of the inhabitants of planet earth. This ecological awareness informs us that there is a deep, underlying, systemic problem with the way we are currently living. We have an outdated mechanistic social system now, which is based on an incorrect understanding of ourselves and of the planet and consequently our social systems are destructive both to the people in them and to the natural world. So we're going to have to develop synergistic social systems because we're not going to be able to evolve sustainably & harmoniously on this planet unless our social systems reflect a natural design and our individual thinking includes an ecological awareness.
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It is impossible to overemphasize how much social change must depend on psychological change and our growth as human beings. We need to rediscover the practices and ways that foster wholeness, well-being & fulfillment from within, and develop ways in which to live that nourish both us and the surrounding world. New realizations when we begin the journey of personal growth & self-development will also allow us to to experience and realize the fundamental connectedness & wholeness of all life. By being whole and simultaneously part of a larger whole, we can change the world by simply changing ourselves. For example, if we realize that if one individual becomes a center of wisdom, understanding, peace & compassion in this very moment, then in perhaps a small, but hardly insignificant way, the world now has a nucleus of wisdom, peace & compassion that it lacked the moment before. This benefits the individual and it benefits the world. Therefore "When we change, the world changes". When this has occured on a global scale, the old problems and inhumanities will vanish, and the revolution will become evolution.
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To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage and kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings have the potential to live, in defiance of all that is around us, is in itself the greatest of achievements.
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