A Spiritual Grounding

A summary of:
Senge, P., Scharmer, C.O., Jaworski, J. & Flowers, B.S. (2004). Presence: Exploring Profound Change inwards People, Organizations in addition to Society. Nicholas Brealey Publishing: London.
Part four – Meeting Our Future (part 1 of 2)

(Image: Namaste, 1994, Alex Grey)

Charles Taylor argues inwards his mass Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 Secular Age that the Industrial Age changed the way nosotros conceive of ‘meaning’, that it became inextricably linked with ‘progress’. “‘Somewhere inwards the terminal generation of two,’” says Senge, “‘the real give-and-take “old” became a pejorative term. Now it’s synonymous with worn-out in addition to obsolete, in addition to ‘new’ automatically agency improved in addition to superior. This mightiness move perfectly fine inwards talking virtually machines, but tragic for living systems” (178). So this department challenges this formulation of pregnant which nosotros instinctively presume to move true. The authors quote Debashish Chatterjee inwards his opening remarks for a seminar on leadership at MIT: “‘I’ve been guided inwards my run yesteryear the notion that older is ofttimes better. If an thought has been some for a few M years, it’s been submitted to many tests – which is a practiced indicator that it mightiness accept some existent merit. We’re fixated on newness, which ofttimes misleads us into elevating novelty over substance’” (179). Some would disagree with this, I realize, but it is maybe a partial justification for turning dorsum to spiritual traditions for inspiration in addition to guidance.

Perhaps this modern predicament could move characterized equally a lack of grounding. This happens when you lot are constantly into the future; you lot are simultaneously running away from the past, where your wisdom is located. The authors quote a “senior officeholder from the United Nations” who ended his presentation to the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis with this harsh evaluation: “‘I’ve dealt with many unlike problems some the world, in addition to I’ve concluded that there’s alone 1 existent problem: over the yesteryear hundred years, the ability that engineering has given us has grown beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, but our wisdom has not. If the gap betwixt our ability in addition to our wisdom is non redressed soon, I don’t accept much promise for our prospects’” (187).

The authors run across some promise inwards the trends inwards modern physics in addition to the accompanying changes inwards the modern scientific worldview. The rejection of the vision of the basis equally “Newtonian billiard balls”, in addition to the embracing of electromagnetic in addition to quantum fields “transformed the Newtonian worldview of isolated particles, [and thus] potentially transforms the particle nature of the isolated self” (188). I, too, uncovering this hopeful, inwards that nosotros are initiative of all to wake upward (again – for this was what diverse religious traditions told us) to the truth that nosotros are all connected. “Connectedness is the defining characteristic of the novel worldview – connectedness equally an organizing regulation of the universe, connectedness betwixt the ‘outer world’ of manifest phenomena in addition to the ‘inner world’ of lived experience, and, ultimately, connectedness alongside people in addition to betwixt human in addition to the larger world. While philosophers in addition to spiritual teachers accept long spoken virtually connectedness, a scientific worldview of connectedness could accept sweeping influence inwards ‘shifting the whole,’ given the purpose of scientific discipline in addition to engineering inwards the modern world” (188). I cannot show this, but I imagine that this worldview made it possible for us to encompass the Internet equally a agency of connecting to others inwards novel ways. And I’ve been asked to justify my determination to focus on the Internet equally a engineering that I desire to blueprint to a greater extent than ‘spiritually’, in addition to I recall this is equally practiced equally any: that this utopian vision of the Internet equally the keen connector of humans amounts to huge spiritual potential, potential that I experience nosotros accept non fully realized because nosotros accept settled for it equally it was initiative of all conceived.

Physicist David Bohm is quoted hither saying, “‘The most of import thing going forrard is to interruption the boundaries betwixt people so nosotros tin operate equally a unmarried intelligence. Bell’s theorem implies that this is the natural nation of the human world, separation without separateness. The chore is to uncovering ways to interruption these boundaries, so nosotros tin move inwards our natural state’” (189). (And, ““Einstein spoke of the ‘optical delusion of our consciousness,’ whereby nosotros experience ourselves ‘as something class from the rest.’ ‘Our task,’ he said, ‘must move to widen our circle of pity to encompass all living creatures in addition to the whole of nature inwards its beauty’” (203).) What does this hateful if nosotros were to apply it to the Internet? Does the Internet actually connect inwards this way? – or does it inwards fact entrench our separateness yesteryear alienating us initiative of all from ourselves (requiring the creation of avatars) in addition to and then from each other (avatars relating to 1 another)? The query nosotros should move squall for is where are the opportunities for diminishing the illusion of separateness?

This department also seems to justify my mission inwards a to a greater extent than fundamental way, i.e. it calls for interdisciplinarity equally a agency of assuaging the problems that arise from siloed thinking. “The basic employment is ‘fragmentation,’ said [physicist David] Bohm, a way of thinking that ‘consists of simulated division, making a sectionalization where at that spot is tight connection’ in addition to of seeing separateness where at that spot is wholeness. Bohm called fragmentation – inwards our sentiment of the universe in addition to of ourselves equally class from 1 some other in addition to nature – ‘the hidden root of the social, political, in addition to environmental crises facing the world’” (190). In a sense, my inquiry would amount to a blending of technology, modern scientific thinking, psychology, sociology, management, blueprint in addition to spirituality. Consider this:

“Master Nan said, ‘What has been lacking inwards the twentieth century is a primal cultural thought that would unify all these things: economy, technology, ecology, society, matter, mind, in addition to spirituality. There are no keen philosophers or keen thinkers who’ve been able to railroad train the thinking that unifies all these questions.’ The decline inwards integrative awareness in addition to thinking has been replaced yesteryear a focus on employment organization in addition to making coin equally a default mutual aim. When Otto told Master Nan he thought human civilisation was on the verge of a novel spiritual awareness, Nan agreed but said that it mightiness non railroad train equally most expect. It ‘will move a unlike spiritual road from that of the past, either inwards the East or West. It volition move a novel spiritual path’” (211). “Or, equally Otto puts it, ‘What’s emerging is a novel synthesis of science, spirituality, in addition to leadership equally unlike facets of a unmarried way of being’” (212).

I resonated with this quote, because it seemed to imply the demand for something similar the HighWire programme, but also assert the demand for spiritual thinking inside academic discourse.