I keep being reminded that everything is inter-related, inter-connected – a reflection of the whole. Einstein said that our feeling of being separate from each other is an ‘optical delusion of our consciousness’ – a prison from which we need to be freed. There is no separateness. the quotes below – reflecting the thoughts of great scientists, philosophers, theologians and artists, writers from a wide range of disciplines, all point to this one truth – we are one. How the world benefits, when we remember this.

 The world must have a God; but our concept of God must be extended as the dimensions of our world are extended. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 The egocentric ideal of a future reserved for those who have managed to attain egotistically the extremity of ‘everyone for himself’ is false and against nature…The outcome of the world, the gates of the future, the entry into the super-human — these are not thrown open to a few of the privileged or to one chosen people to the exclusion of all others. They will only open to an advance of all together, in a direction in which all together can join and find completion in a spiritual renovation of the earth…No evolutionary future awaits man except in association with all other men. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 A human being is part of the Whole…He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest…a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security. Albert Einstein

Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is, in a certain sense, the WHOLE; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in the sacred, mystic formula which is yet so simple and so clear: “Tat Tvam asi”. this is you…And not merely “someday”; now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once, but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end. Erwin Schroedinger

 In the most general form and from the point of view of physics, love is the internally affectively apprehended aspect of the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world, centre to centre…Love is power of producing inter-centric relationship. It is present, therefore (at least in a rudimentary state), in all natural centres living and pre-living, which make up the world; and it represents, too, the most profound, most direct, and most creative form of inter-action that is possible to conceive between those centres…Love, in fact, is the expression and agent of Universal Synthesis.  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever effects one directly, affects all indirectly… I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today the network of relationships linking the human race to itself and to the rest of the biosphere is so complex that all aspects affect all others to an extraordinary degree. Someone should be studying the whole system, however crudely that has to be done, because no gluing together of partial studies of a complex nonlinear system can give a good idea of the behaviour of the whole. Murray Gell-Mann

 Matter at each level of complexity appears to consist of two interdependent, non-identical elements in dynamic interaction and in integral relation to each other. It appears that an interacting, dynamic, asymmetrical binary relationship is the fundamental module of order in the cosmos. I have the impression that the interactions in these dynamic asymmetrical binary systems underlie all phenomena in nature…The most fundamental phenomena in the universe are relationship. It then becomes possible to recognize the underlying unity in all the diversity of the phenomena of life. Jonas Salk – medical scientist who developed vaccine that helped conquer polio in 1955.

 [We realize that]… We are here to consciously evolve, to intentionally do anything and everything we can to unleash all of the extraordinary creative potential within, so that the human race’s next step can, in some small but not insignificant way, emerge through us. Andrew Cohen

 We are here together to consciously evolve, to intentionally do anything and everything we can to unleash all of the extraordinary creative potential within, so that the human race’s next step can, in some small but not insignificant way, emerge through us. from Andrew Cohen

 Heaven is my Father and Earth is my Mother, and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst. Therefore, that which fills the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I consider as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions. Zhang Zai (1020 – 1077) Chinese sage in the Confucian tradition

… Everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation
whose meaning
none of us will ever know

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

– an extract from In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver

There are three things worth doing: Here is the first…

First, we each need to awaken to the personal journey we each need to make. This journey is essentially about waking up to the reality that we don’t live in individual isolation. We live in a ‘delicate network of inter-connectedness’ (the Dalai Lama’s phrase) or in what I like to call ‘the field of wholeness’ – or as Deepak Chopra calls it, ‘the cosmic soup’. In this reality what I do actually impacts on you. My lifestyle, my actions, my attitudes, my ego-driven behaviour actually does have a direct bearing on you. When I poison the soup on my side – it will poison (eventually) the soup from where you drink it. When I drink too much – it leaves less for you. Listen to what others have (much more profoundly):

This we know:
The earth does not belong to humankind;
Humankind belongs to the earth.
All things are connected – like the blood that unites one family.
Humankind did not weave the web of life;
We are merely a strand in it.
Whatever we do to the web;
We do to ourselves.

Chief Seattle

Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens.

 Ralph Waldo Emerson

 A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Albert Einstein

 I am a part of all that I have met.

Alfred Tennyson

 Hear me, four quarters of the world – a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is! 

Black Elk – Oglala Sioux holy man (1863-1950)

 Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.

Harriet Goldhor Lerner

 We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibres, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.

 Herman Melville – rather tragic essayist but author of the beloved Moby Dick, living during the 1800’s

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

David Muir

Indeed, to some extent it has always been necessary and proper for man, in his thinking, to divide things up, if we tried to deal with the whole of reality at once, we would be swamped. However when this mode of thought is applied more broadly to man’s notion of himself and the whole world in which he lives, (i.e. in his world-view) then man ceases to regard the resultant divisions as merely useful or convenient and begins to see and experience himself and this world as actually constituted of separately existing fragments. What is needed is a relativistic theory, to give up altogether the notion that the world is constituted of basic objects or building blocks. Rather one has to view the world in terms of universal flux of events and processes.

David Bohm

 Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static “snapshots.” It is a set of general principles — distilled over the course of the twentieth century, spanning fields as diverse as the physical and social sciences, engineering, and management…. During the last thirty years, these tools have been applied to understand a wide range of corporate, urban, regional, economic, political, ecological, and even psychological systems. And systems thinking is a sensibility — for the subtle interconnectedness that gives living systems their unique character.

Peter Senge

 The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Rabindranath Tagore  was a Bengali poet, Brahmoreligionist , visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became Asia’s first Nobel Laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature.

So, we are connected – and waking up to this tremendous truth, is the most vital thing each of us can do. Why? Because when awake to this truth, it opens us to live in ways that honour the whole.And herein is a truth. We live fully, more truely, more significantly and more enjoyably when we live not for ourselves but for the common good.

In Kenya, there is an old saying - Jishinde Ushinde – it means this: ‘Your struggle is with yourself’. It is a profound insight – going to the root of a human dilemma - which is the location in the context of our lives of our ‘self’ of in this context lets call it the ‘ego’. Your struggle in truth, is with your ego and the extent to which it drives your life. An ego driven life is one consumed by ‘whats in it for me’ thinking. An ego driven life is a life characterised by narcissism – the individualist culture of ‘grasping and defending’ (as the Buddhists may describe it).

Waking up and entering into the ‘field of wholeness’ – seeing the whole picture, understanding the inter-relatedness enables us to ‘relativise’ (as the Jungians may say) our ego – to put it in its relative place. It is remarkable what occurs when ego isnt driving our lives, our projects, our aspirations, our dreams and vision. Uncluttered by our neediness, we are able to see the possibilities and linkages that exist in the ‘cosmic soup’.

This waking up is in itself a journey – not a destination. It is the first of three vital things we can do for ourselves. 

Chris Ahrends, Cape Town, August 2009

Africa’s traditional places of wonder, beauty, fun and adventure are legendary. Vast rivers, thundering waterfalls, endless deserts reaching back 80 million years, wide open veld and distant plains that are home to all who venture here. Accessible, vibrant, warm, welcoming – Africa is our home, our birthplace, the continent of being. In Africa, all belong. In Africa, it all began. This is the meaning of ubuntu – we each have our unique-ness, but are only able to express it within community. We are waves who take their shape within a larger ocean. 

Many people come to Africa and are deeply touched by the beauty; the breadth of the horizen; the vast ark of the skyline; and by the spirit of African peoples even in times of immense struggle and pain.

Increasingly Africans are offering such visitors more than simply a beauty-filled nature-based experience. More and more, alongside the environment through which visitors are journeying, they are being encouraged to reflect on their own life-journeys; on the ‘inner environment’ of their own lives; on the ‘nature of their own daily experiences’. To make a ‘journey within a journey’ - a transformational journey inside an African holiday, within the safari or adventure, alongside the bush drives and the immense views of starlit skies.

The invitation is to engage in a holiday that combines visits to extraordinary places with gently guided times of reflection and personal renewal.

Journeying within a journey – a process some call soul tourism – in which, while you enjoy and engage in all the adventure, fun and recreation of an African holiday, you also take time to reflect on and strengthen the inner journey of your life.

What would such a journey be like? First, during the days of your safari or holiday, you will be presented with reflections guiding you to be present to the interior dimensions of your life, encouraging you to explore these themes in the context of inter-active learnings – in the classrooms of nature – around the fires of the evening and in the magnificent African sunrises and sunsets.

Then, second, around an evening fire or at an African dinner or with an African drum, you can engage with and experience some of Africa’s vital and traditional (pre-colonial) concepts – such as ubuntu (that a person is a person though other persons) – as well as concepts that may hold the keys (or at least fresh ideas) to some of the world’s major issues.

Finally and third, towards the end of your safari holiday, you could have the opportunity to give back – to share something of the inspiration you have received by visiting and working (for a day or part of it) in a vulnerable community, building partnerships with local citizens and helping them paint a hospital ward, fix a windmill, connect a water point.

Make a transformational journey inside your African holiday! It could change your life!

For further information – contact Chris on chris@chrisahrends.com

I have often quoted Andrew Cohen – teacher and spiritual guide of the 21st C – here is another of his pieces:
No matter what new thrilling potentials any one of us may glimpse in a higher state of consciousness, unless our core values shift in a significant way as a result of what we have seen, the future that we want to create together will never appear. Our core values are pictures or images that we hold in the eye of our mind that define for us what life is supposed to look like. These pictures are both conscious and unconscious, and there is an enormous amount of emotion associated with these images and with what they represent to us on many levels.
The most challenging dimension of higher or vertical spiritual development lies in the evolution of our value spheres. It is not very difficult, given the right circumstances, to enter higher states of consciousness and in those higher states to glimpse the exciting and extraordinary potentials that await us on the other side of our usually rigid and fixed way of perceiving the way things are. The ecstatic promise that is revealed to us when we suddenly see an open-ended future bursting with infinite potential is the greatest inspiration. And this occurs because our perception is temporarily unobscured by the long shadow of doubt, cynicism, and fear that our ego casts on all that is higher than itself!
The ego within each and every one of us is both individual and collective. If we are interested in the evolution of consciousness, it’s very important that we make the effort to understand the difference between these two dimensions of our own self. The structure of the personal ego is shaped and formed by the unique circumstances, history, and life experience of each individual. The collective ego is the shared values that we have all absorbed consciously and unconsciously from our cultural heritage. It is impossible to separate any notion of individuality and personal identity from the core values that we hold.
Our values are the structures through which we know and evaluate meaning and purpose. These values also include the way we see ourselves, including how our personal ego happens to feel about any given issue or circumstance. In our postmodern cultural milieu, most of us are quite familiar with the notion of a personal ego, its fears and desires, its conditioned nature, and its strong emotional preferences. But few of us have begun to see our self-structure as a conglomeration of deeply held values that have a deep effect on the way that we interpret our experience and see the world—much deeper than we may be aware of.
Our values are pictures of not only what life should look like but also images of what’s possible. In a spiritually enlightened, evolutionary worldview, our inner eye has awakened to the ever-forward looking vision of the Authentic Self or energy and intelligence that initiated the creative process. That is why, unless our deeply held and not so conscious traditional, modern, and postmodern value spheres have been brought into the light of awareness and penetrated with the eye of contemplation, no matter what thrilling new potentials we have glimpsed in higher states of consciousness, we will never be able to actualize them in real time. Unsupported by the ecstasy of those higher states, we will inevitably fall back to a self structure and a value sphere that simply doesn’t have any space for the open-ended Kosmic perspective of the Authentic Self. I can’t over-emphasize how important this is.
The evolution of enlightenment and the evolution of consciousness at the leading edge is not only about awakening to the inherent freedom of the timeless Ground of Being or experiencing the thrilling evolutionary imperative of the Authentic Self. More than anything else, it is about the evolution of our core values! If we are passionately committed to the evolution of consciousness and culture, we must ensure at all costs that our personal conscious and unconscious shared values become an unambiguous expression of our deepest insights. Unless this is the case, the very best part of each and every one of us, the spiritual impulse, our own Authentic Self, will inadvertently be stunted in its ability to effect any significant change in our world. It will remain imprisoned in unexamined values, unconscious preferences, and charged emotional reactiveness that bears no relationship whatsoever to our highest motives.
God is that burning intelligence and driving impulse that is ever leaning forward, reaching toward that which has not yet become manifest. Evolutionary Enlightenment is about unapologetically becoming a living embodiment of those values that express that unself-conscious creativity at the very edge of the possible. Do you have the courage to be the one who will be the vehicle for that energy and intelligence? Our future depends on it. And God is truly depending on each and every one of us.

 

	I READ about a stoic philosopher in ancient Greece who, when told that his son had died in an accident, replied, “I knew he was not immortal.” Is that surrender? If it is, I don’t want it. There are some situations in which surrender seems unnatural and inhuman. Being cut off from your feelings is not surrender. But we don’t know what his inner state was when he said those words. In certain extreme situations, it may still be impossible for you to accept the Now. But you always get a second chance at surrender. Your first chance is to surrender each moment to the reality of that moment. Knowing that what is cannot be undone – because it already is – you say yes to what is or accept what isn’t. Then you do what you have to do, whatever the situation requires. If you abide in this state of acceptance, you create no more negativity, no more suffering, no more unhappiness. You then live in a state of non-resistance, a state of grace and lightness, free of struggle. Whenever you are unable to do that, whenever you miss that chance – either because you are not generating enough conscious presence to prevent some habitual and unconscious resistance pattern or because the condition is so extreme as to be absolutely unacceptable to you – then you are creating some form of pain, some form of suffering. It may look as if the situation is creating the suffering, but ultimately this is not so; your resistance is. Now here is your second chance at surrender: if you cannot accept what is outside, accept what is inside. If you cannot accept the external condition, accept the internal condition. This means: do not resist the pain. Allow it to be there. Surrender to the grief, despair, fear, loneliness or whatever form the suffering takes. Witness it without labelling it mentally. Embrace it. Then see how the miracle of surrender transmutes deep suffering into deep peace. This is your crucifixion. Let it become your resurrection and ascension. When your pain is deep, all talk of surrender will probably seem futile and meaningless. When your pain is deep, you will likely have a strong urge to escape from it rather than surrender to it. You don’t want to feel what you feel. What could be more normal? But there is no escape, no way out. There are many pseudo escapes – work, drink, drugs, anger, projection, suppression, and so on – but they don’t free you from the pain. Suffering does not diminish in intensity when you make it unconscious. When you deny emotional pain, everything you do or think, as well as your relationships, becomes contaminated with it. You broadcast it, so to speak, as the energy you emanate and others will pick it up subliminally. You attract and manifest whatever corresponds to your inner state. When there is no way out, there is still always a way through. So don’t turn away from the pain. Face it. Feel it fully – don’t think about it! Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event or situation that seems to have caused it. Don’t let the mind use the pain to create a victim identity for yourself. Feeling sorry for yourself and telling others your story will keep you stuck in suffering. Since it is impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change is to move into it; otherwise, nothing will shift. So give your complete attention to what you feel. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert. At first it may seem like a dark and terrifying place and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don’t act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain; keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present – present with your whole Being. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness. Adapted from The Power of Now, copyright 1999 by Eckhart Tolle.

 

You may have noticed that I have used materials from the writings of Andrew Cohen. He writes so well and says things so much more articulately than can I. Here is another example – edited and adapted somewhat by me – but essentially it is Andrew’s work. My one concern, as a South African, about this article is the use of a military metaphor. Having grown up in a military-minded nationalist apartheid state, with the military being such a symbol of the oppressive regime, the metaphor evokes a negative connotation in me. However, if I rid myself of the emotional charge the metaphor carries, I can see the point Andrew is making! 

For those who are serious about the urgent need to create new pathways into the future, I am convinced that the only way we’re going to actually succeed is by doing it together. We have to find a way to meet one another in a place we’ve never been before, in a higher state of consciousness and a higher stage of development that are unhindered by the separating influence of the narcissistic ego or personal self-sense. In spite of all the talk about spiritual enlightenment these days, the notion of going beyond ego, which has always been what enlightenment is all about, is something that very few people take seriously. And the thrilling possibility of a shared enlightenment, or inter-subjective emergence of higher consciousness beyond ego boundaries, is so far from our day-to-day experience that it is almost impossible to conceive. But if we aspire to accomplish something of great significance in this life, to create something truly important, we must be able to work seamlessly together with others as one being, and simultaneously allow the innate strengths and unique talents of every individual involved to flower in a powerful way. For this to occur, our biggest obstacle—the postmodern psychological disease of extreme narcissism and self-concern—must be transcended to a profound degree by all committed parties.

For a long time now, I’ve been trying to explain to as many people as possible what it takes for a group of deeply committed individuals to come together for the highest evolutionary purpose there is: to create the future. I have found that one of the most accessible ways to express this is by using war metaphors—scenarios in which human beings unite in dramatic and extraordinary ways to protect themselves from annihilation. It seems that up to this point in our historical development, our capacity to come together beyond merely personal motives has more often than not been driven by a need to survive rather than by an awakened individual and collective passion to evolve. Ironically, the higher human virtues of heroism and selflessness, which often rise to the surface during times of war, are the closest analogy I have found for the spiritual qualities that are evoked in the awakened passion to evolve together with others for a higher purpose. Why? Because in the heat of battle, the intensity of the fear of death and the instinct to survive compel us to transcend our narcissistic tendencies, if only temporarily. Imagine a special forces unit on a mission. Here is a group of individuals who are absolutely united in their dedication to one another and to their goal. Because they are so committed and highly trained, each individual is more focused on the mission than they are on their own petty self-concern. That is what makes it possible for them to act and react as one body, with unselfconscious speed and precision, while at the same time performing their individual roles with maximum effectiveness.

In our times of greatest crisis, we human beings have proven to ourselves time and again that we can rise to the occasion. In our finer moments, we have even shown that we are willing to make the effort to come together beyond fear, attachment, and self-concern, not only to protect ourselves from our enemies but also in the name of higher values such as justice, liberty, and equal rights. But are we now ready to take the next step? Are we, the children of post-modernity, willing to make the heroic effort, here and now, to rise above our biggest obstacle to creating the future together at the leading edge—our cultural narcissism and self-concern? Are we willing to come together beyond ego and create new pathways into the future, for the sake of the evolution of consciousness itself? If we are, the miraculous new potentials that begin to emerge in individuals and through dynamic collectives will be beyond our ability to imagine.

 bu Andrew Cohen from the Enlightennext magazine Feb/Mar 09

 An article by by Andrew Cohen – see andrewcohen.org/teachings/fivetenets.asp

It is indeed a remarkable fact that now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, executives and business leaders are beginning to look to the perennial spiritual truth of Oneness, not only for personal salvation in these most challenging of times but as the source for a new, deeper, and higher perspective from which to engage in the global marketplace. The first time I heard about this phenomenon was about four years ago when a friend told me: “Business people are scared because the rate of change is accelerating so quickly that they know the old ways of thinking are outmoded. They’re turning to spiritual concepts and techniques as an adaptive or coping mechanism in order to survive in this brave new world.”On a recent teaching trip to Australia, I was invited to give a presentation about “authentic leadership,” sponsored by the Australian Institute for Management and the Integral Leadership Centre. Present were business consultants, managers, executives, healthcare practitioners, and even a government minister. In the morning, I gave a talk about the evolution of consciousness in order to create a context—the biggest context possible—in which to talk about the importance of leadership. In the afternoon, I spoke about authentic leadership, which is quite a big buzzword in the alternative business community. In fact, knowing I was a spiritual teacher and not a professional business consultant, my host reminded me before the second talk, “Andrew, be sure to get something in about authentic leadership.” Of course, in an enlightenment context, there is no difference between what it means to be an authentic leader and what it means to be a liberated human being. I made clear that if we aspire to be an authentic leader, we must always be willing to:

   Stand alone
   Live fearlessly
   Act heroically
   Want to be free and true more than anything else
   Take unconditional responsibility for oneself
   Face everything and avoid nothing
   At all times see things impersonally
   Live for a higher purpose *

As I slowly but passionately worked my way down the list, I could feel the atmosphere in the room change from the openhearted receptivity that had met my morning presentation to one of drowsiness, dullness, discomfort, and even fear. Then, out of the blue, my host suddenly stood up and said, “Let’s take a short break!” Giving that talk was a confusing experience because the longer I spoke about authentic leadership, the more powerfully I felt the message was actually coming through. And the more powerfully I felt the message coming through, the greater was the feeling of inertia, resistance, and disinterest in the room. When we gathered again after the brief break, the fear and inertia were gone, but what was also gone was the palpable sense of evolutionary tension that had been present when we all, if only for the briefest moment, had glimpsed what it meant to be an authentic leader.

The thought of being a leader may seem like an appealing idea to the ego, but the reality of what being an authentic leader implies scares the ego to death. It means ego death. Why? Because it means that we actually care so much about a higher purpose, a higher principle, a higher goal that we’re willing to make the most important sacrifices for the sake of what we are aspiring to accomplish. It means we care so passionately about others also reaching that goal that we unhesitatingly sacrifice our own peace of mind, comfort, and security in order for them to succeed. It really means that we have no choice left anymore because we have realized without any doubt that from now on, it’s up to us. We have realized that One Without a Second. We have realized that there is no other and there never could have been. What is so interesting about authentic leadership is this very insight: that once we have arrived, there is no longer any point of return. We have become one with destiny itself.

Becoming ‘carbon neutral’ means that you have neutralized the effect of your personal greenhouse gas emissions, so that your personal and household activities no longer contribute to the dangers of global warming.

On average, 25% of developed countries emissions come from our personal activities. The rest comes from industry, commerce, agriculture, oilfields, trucking, defence, and so on. 

Global climate change is an enormous problem that needs our urgent attention. A January 2004 study from a team of conservation biologists based at the University of Leeds, Britain, concluded that by 2050, if temperatures  continue to increase as forecast, between 15% and 37% of all land-based animals and plants will become extinct; around one million species. This is on our watch, while we are the ones who are responsible, with the ability to reduce this toll.

In addition to striving to reduce your personal emissions, becoming carbon neutral at the household level is one way to exercise this responsibility.

What Are Carbon Offsets?

A carbon offset is an initiative which neutralizes the impact of a carbon emission. For example:

* If you plant trees on land which would otherwise have been tree-less, the trees will absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and store the carbon for the life of the tree. (This is also known as “sequestration”.) Some people have reservations about tree-planting as a carbon offset, since as the global temperature increases, there is a risk that the trees will burn down, succumb to pest damage, or cease to grow.

* If you support the development of a wind turbine or solar photovoltaic panel which would not have otherwise been installed, replacing the use of diesel, gas, kerosene or oil, this will reduce the CO2 emissions that would have been released by those fossil fuels.

* It is essential that the activity you are supporting would not otherwise have happened. So if someone is installing a solar hot water system on their roof, for instance, which will reduce the amount of gas they burn to heat water, and you offer to pay for half of it, that is not a valid carbon offset.

* Installing a solar panel on your own roof will reduce your personal emissions, but it will not offset them unless you install more solar PV than you need, so that the surplus can be sold into the grid, reducing the quantity of fossil fuels needed to make electricity.

Follow the logic?

Hard and Soft Offsets

There is a global marketplace for carbon offsets, and a system of verification which ensures that the offset you paid for is really happening, and can not be sold to anyone else. This is important to sustain the credibility of the offsets. Most offsets are being bought by companies which have made a voluntary commitment to reduce their emissions, or are required to by state regulations.

For individuals, there are two kinds of offsets that you can buy: “hard” and “soft” offsets. A hard offset will neutralize a measurable quantity of CO2, as described above.

A soft offset is a financial contribution which supports an organization which is working to tackle global climate change, and reduce our overall emissions. If your contribution helps an organization to hire a member of staff whose efforts result in the State Legislature passing a bill which requires all power utilities to offset 50% of their CO2 emissions, for instance, that is an enormous achievement, which will cause a tangible reduction. The same logic applies if the organization is doing public education, or promoting cycling as an alternative to driving. You will never be able to measure the tons of carbon reduced thanks to your contribution, which is why this is a ‘soft’ offset, but it is still a totally valid way of offsetting your personal emissions.

Source: http://www.self.org/carbonneutral1.shtml- accessed 17 Feb. 09

Robb Smith, co-founder and CEO of Integral Life and the Integral Institute writing in the Integral Life Newsletter said that during 2008, he spent eight weeks on the road meeting a wide range of leaders to ask them what they thought the most pressing question an integral leader faces today: how an integral view of the world relevant in today’s world, and how can it be applied to humanity’s most serious challenges? 

He visited some of the most prominent gatherings of world leaders at events by TED, Aspen Institute, the Conscious Capitalism Club, and Global Philanthropy Forum etc.

Says Smith, “Three themes emerged from my conversations with heads of major foundations, heads of state, multinational corporation executives, diplomats, entrepreneurs, and spiritual leaders.” They are: 

1. An integral view of the world is a powerful framework for global transformation.  Currently, our most sophisticated global solutions are fragmented and partial.  Many problems are too complex for narrow solutions or single-discipline specialists and leaders are implicitly seeking an integral framework.  

2. Integral practitioners have a lot of work to do.  In order to apply integral solutions to pressing global issues – consciousness growth, climate change, poverty, conflict and security, healthcare, human trafficking, human rights – we must be able to engage these issues at the level of specificity and relevance in order to aid leaders on the front lines.  We have work to do, and Integral Life and Integral Institute will lead by catalyzing and funding this work.

3. Individual transformation is key.  The work of global change begins with individual awareness.  We need to facilitate the process of transformation throughout the world, so that we may have leaders who are self-aware and who can be an important contribution to humanity’s development.

The work of transformation is in essence awakening and opening ourselves to the truth that we live in a field of wholeness - that all of life is interconnected and is one. Leadership that leads from within this paradigm will find the solutions we need in the world today.

chris ahrends

 

http://www.maniacworld.com/are-you-going-to-finish-strong.html

http://vimeo.com/2217073

A newspaper reported recently that a company will hire consultants to help identify and fix staff morale problems identified in employee surveys and an audit. Fully 50% of employees believe there is favouritism within the company and fear retaliation if they tell the truth about issues. Only 6% of employees agreed with the statement: “leaders and managers practice what they preach.”

The CEO, who took over the leadership role in mid 2004, stated: “I take absolute responsibility because that is what a leader does.” The CEO said consultants are needed to fix morale problems because “morale is more than just being nice.”

I am not surprised at the percentage within the company who fear retaliation. I’ve never seen an organization where fear of retaliation wasn’t high. The first rule of organizations is conformity, and those who don’t conform are generally punished.

The Gallup Organization reported that 74% of American workers are disengaged clock-watchers who cannot wait to go home at night. Fully 19% of them are actively disengaged meaning that they do less work, are less productive, and miss more time at work at an estimated cost of $300 billion a year.

This massive disengagement is symptomatic of organizations in decline. We experience that decline as stress, pettiness, power struggles for control, cynicism, and higher turnover. This disengagement is a leadership failure. Effective leaders can change this but it is difficult work.

Leaders are not in the happiness business. It is the job of leaders to imagine a better future for the organization and create conditions where employees can choose to be engaged at work. It is the job of supervisors and managers to respectfully and effectively utilize the talents of employees in ways aligned with the vision and/or mission of the organization.

I’ve seen the disengaged of organizations come back to life when they are well led. Leaders have tremendous impact on people and often lack empathy for their effect on others.

Consultants cannot “fix” the problems. A consultant can provide support, knowledge, experience, methodology, and facilitation. They cannot lead. The hard work of leadership, change management, and renewal of the organization must be done by competent leaders and managers within the organization. That is what leaders do.

Most efforts to change cultures fail-70% to 90%. To evolve sustainable culture change requires courageous, committed, and highly skilled leaders throughout the organization. The leader’s greatest asset is his/her credibility.

If, in 3 to 6 months, change cannot be felt and seen, then new leadership is required. While it can take years for a complete culture change, positive and energized leadership can bring about short-term change that shows progress is being made.

In the end, it’s all about leadership.

Adapated from the article by Tom Heuerman – see pamphlet 129 on www.amorenaturalway.com

 

I came across a set of ‘strategic imperatives for the world’ developed by an international organisation with which I immediately could align. We live in a world, the organisation suggested, in which the following three imperatives were urgently required:

1. Ecological Sustainability 

2. Social Justice

3. Spiritual Fulfilment 

In my courses and teaching, especially with students, I have often suggested that the three most dangerous issues facing the world today are, 1. Global Warming, 2. Global Poverty and 3. Global Fundamentalism (religious, ideological, economic, philosophical etc). As you can imagine, this is fertile ground for a good discussion in the classroom.

While it is not unhelpful to focus on the three grave dangers that face us, what is powerful about the three ‘imperatives’ suggested by the international organisation, is that they don’t draw our attention to the problem but seek to empower us by suggesting solutions. We have three solutions, or three opportunities to create powerful possibilities during the year ahead – to live ecologically more sensitively (review our diets, our waste); to take up social justice issues (each of us will have our particular concern) and to develop our spiritual practices (dedicating just 30 minutes per day to mindful or ‘silent sitting’ would be very powerful).

My consulting practice is dedicated to the work of transformation – from the more personal inner processes of our individual transformation to the more macro processes of transformation we are called to engage with in the world (political, social and economic transformation). 2009 is by all accounts going to be a tough year – and that’s why it can also be an exciting year for creating transformational possibilities.  What ever it holds for us individually and collectively, working off the solid platform of ecological sustainability, social justice and a daily spiritual practice will surely make it a powerful and creative time!

When spirit took the leap from formlessness to form, from nothing to something, from being to becoming, it emerged from emptiness as the creative impulse—the urge to become, the desire to exist. This creative impulse expresses itself at all levels of the human experience. Any human being can locate it at the lowest level of their being—at the gross physical level—as the sexual impulse, which is really the presence or movement of the big bang as a biological imperative. But at higher levels of being, humans are the only life forms we know of that are compelled to innovate and to create. We can see this especially in individuals who are pioneers in their fields, whether they are great philosophers, musicians, artists, politicians, or poets. Most individuals who are deeply talented are driven by a sense of urgency, an ecstatically urgent sense that “I must bring into life this potential that I see and experience in the depths of my own being. This must come through me.” If we get to know them, we will usually find that truly great human beings are driven by a passion that transcends their separate self-sense…. And in the way I understand it, the highest expression of this creative impulse is the urge to evolve at the level of consciousness itself.

 

From EnlightenNext Magazine by Andrew Cohen

What is Organisational Transformation and how do you know if you’re getting it right?

Let’s face it – the most important issue facing business leadership today is the need to prepare their organisations to cope with perpetual change.

But can your leadership team tell the difference between the concepts of transformational change versus incremental change? During these increasingly turbulent and challenging times there is a pressing need for leaders to view change differently.

They should not try to manage it as a series of independent initiatives, but should rather have a more holistic approach so that people are better able to make sense of the changes.

Wendell L. French & Cecil H. Bell, Jr. (1999) define Organisational Transformation activities as those that involve large-scale system changes, specifically activities that are designed to change fundamentally the nature of the organisation. In the process of true Organisational Transformation, almost everything about the organisation is changed including the structure, management philosophy, reward systems, the design of work and the organisation’s mission, values and culture.

Large-scale transformation in organisations needs to be seen as both a re-socialisation process as well as a journey of discovery. People need to be given an opportunity to internalise new assumptions and behaviours. We know that set goals that are supported by time-bound, predetermined plans are a thing of the past.

The future state is always going to be unclear, so business leaders need to access the information and knowledge that exists both within their organisations as well as externally to find mutually acceptable solutions to the challenges they are facing.

The traditional approach to strategy implies that because our business model succeeded in the past, and is still succeeding today, it will continue (with a few minor tweaks) to provide us with a foundation for success in the future. If we play this scenario out, organisations will continue to reproduce themselves as they have always been, constantly repeating past history and maintaining the status quo – that is, if they survive and don’t go out of business!

This approach worked well for many successful organisations when there was little change in the external environment, and when there was plenty of time to reflect and make minor course adjustments, as appropriate. Today, we operate in a very different environment where the only way for organisations to survive and adapt successfully to chaos and complexity is for them to strive for perpetual transformation.

Today’s organisations need to renew and reinvent themselves continually in order to stay ahead of the competition. To achieve this, business leaders need to anticipate trends and grow their organisation’s capacity for continuous learning. Laszlo and Laugel (2000) note that a key focus for leaders should be nurturing the emergence of organisational intelligence.

Global corporations of today need to be less focused on structure and internal resources and more on the dynamics of change. Companies are defined by their ideas and business processes, the nature of their internal and external relationships and by the way they work with their business partners. Organisations are looking for ways to encourage integration and create more fluid boundaries.

And transformational leaders are creating environments in which diverse viewpoints are encouraged in a culture of sharing, mutual respect, active listening and dialogue.

Transformational leaders, when managing large-scale change in organisations, are recognising that they are managing ‘multiple-realities’ to the extent that no single change intervention is now viewed as being sufficient to make large-scale transformational change happen successfully. These leaders are looking for multiple methods for influencing the transformational process.

This is why Whole-System Participatory approaches, specifically large-group intervention models which incorporate small-group work sessions, are providing some of the best opportunities to leaders who are driving large-scale change in their organisations.

Lee Knobel,
Consulting Director of World View Consulting

Lee’s expertise in organisational change has taken her on assignments to Africa, United States, UK, Europe and Asia, where she has partnered with senior executives to lead transformational change and grow high-performing organisations. Lee specialises in leadership development and coaching, building effective teams and enabling large-scale organisational change.

 

References:
1. Wendell L. French & Cecil H. Bell, Jr. (1999) Organization Development: Behavioral Science Interventions for Organization Improvement Prentice-Hall: NJ
2. Laszlo, C. & Laugel, J. (2000). Large-scale organizational change: An executive’s guide. Boston: Butterworth- Heinemann.