by Terry Patten and Marco V Morelli -
Consciousness, Culture and Society:
We live in edge times, when it seems anything is possible. People everywhere are waking up to the reality that the world as we know it is dying and a new world is struggling to be born.
Across the globe, the streets are filled with people demanding change. Some are even giving their lives. And millions more are working for change more quietly, yet no less profoundly.
Our digital age lets us see more clearly than ever that our diverse political, cultural, and spiritual struggles—from Tahrir Square to Wall Street, from Tibet to the tribulations in our personal lives—are fundamentally not separate, but part of a bigger story of our evolving humanity.
Even as our culture and institutions scramble to preserve an unsustainable status quo, some of us are busy imagining a new future for humanity. And we’re not just imagining it—we’re beginning to make it happen.
A Beautiful Crisis
We all know the problems we face. A global economy held together by duct tape. Ecosystems under assault. Political systems in paralysis. A culture of careless consumption. And the list goes on . . .
On the other hand, in many ways, we’ve never had it better. We’ve never had more material wealth and cultural openness; more technological and policy fixes to deploy; more learning and wisdom at our fingertips; or more widespread willingness to make the needed changes to foster a thriving human presence on the planet.
The zeitgeist—the spirit of our age—is animated by this simultaneous recognition of crisis and possibility. We live with anxiety and uncertainty, as old structures wobble on the verge of collapse, yet we're inspired by the promise of a new world that's shining through the cracks of the old.
And as with any birth, it’s a beautiful and dangerous time . . .
A Dream Deferred?
For millennia, history has been made by human beings on fire with the radical dream of a better world to come.
We’ve toiled, sacrificed, raised our voices, and gone to war . . . been beaten, jailed and crucified . . . starved ourselves and self-immolated for the sake of this more beautiful world.
We’ve also written books of poetry and philosophy . . . meditated, prayed, worshipped, and danced . . . made art and love and peace . . . advanced scientific knowledge and invented new technologies to bring an amazing and sacred world into presence, here and now.
In the process, we’ve evolved from scattered bands of primitive hunter-gatherers to a global, diverse, hi-tech, interconnected civilization of billions.
Yet, for all our real and significant advances, we continue to abuse and enslave each other; we perpetuate a dissociation from the natural world; and, indirectly, we stifle the development of our highest creative and spiritual capacities.
That why, for many of us, the dream of a better world burns more brightly and more urgently than ever.
An Integral Consciousness
We’ve come to realize that our existing ideologies and philosophies are no longer adequate, by themselves. We feel called to enact that ancient dream with a new consciousness.
It’s a consciousness that’s beyond conservative or progressive, inner or outer, skepticism or faith—yet it’s inclusive of each.
It’s a consciousness that’s evolving to meet the challenges and possibilities of our time—and it’s quietly yet insistently arising in millions around the globe.
An Idea Whose Time Has Come
To make it through our evolutionary crucible will require a whole new movement in consciousness and culture—one that we call “integral” because it will be defined by the integration of previously separate, partial, fragmented and one-dimensional approaches to reality.
Integral describes the evolutionary practice of engaging the crisis/birth of this miraculous moment in our social activism, our creative work and our personal lives.
The word “Integral” also names and connects the many efforts already germinating at every level and in every segment of society to bring greater wholeness, health, balance, intelligence and love into the world.
When we commit to not just “be the change” or “do the change” but to enter the territory of enacting both at once, we aspire to something that’s never existed before: a sustainable and thriving planetary civilization that supports every human being’s capacity for consciousness, creativity and connectedness.
Around the globe, (extra)ordinary people are coming together and rising up—sometimes in the streets but just as radically in homes, churches, classrooms, laboratories, office buildings, meeting rooms and of course, online—not just demanding change but manifesting it . . . making the dream of a more beautiful world a reality.
In other words, an Integral Revolution is not only necessary—it’s already underway.
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