Vision
The context for this “new” Concord Institute website is the current global systems crisis in which the means by which we live on earth – political, social, economic, and ecological – are stretched to the breaking point. Dysfunction and chaos are growing, and there seems no solution at hand that can restore the balance and sanity that we need in order to thrive as a species and take responsibility for the health and beauty of the home we share with many species – the planet earth.
The vision for this restoration of balance is of the further deliberate development and maturation of human consciousness as an antidote to the various crises. I hold that consciousness directly affects attitudes and behavior, and that as we think and feel, so we become and act. The various current crises, local and global, can be seen partly as the result of immature human consciousness, driven by fear, greed, and ignorance.
The work, therefore, is to find ways in which our consciousness, both individual and collective, can be helped to develop into saner, wiser, and more loving attitudes and behavior among ourselves, in relation to the other species with whom we share the planet, and to the planet herself.
To this end I believe that we need a basic shift in identification and identity from the narrow and distorted perspectives of our personal wounds, enculturation, and personality to the broader understandings and experience of our inherent interconnection with All Life and our capacity for wisdom, true power, love, and creative collaboration with others.
We need to “grow up” and take responsibility for the conditions we have created by our immature consciousness and begin to make choices that enhance rather than erode Life on earth.
In a word, we need to wake up and find new ways of living and working on earth that sustain Life – both ours and that of other species.
It is a tall order, and almost everything we are familiar with needs to change, but without this shift life on earth will continue to degrade and become more and more dysfunctional. As Martin Luther King said, “We will either learn to love each other as brothers and sisters, or we will perish as fools.”
All these materials, in one way or another, speak to this need, and can be used to support and quicken this process of awakening, Self-realization, and consciousness maturation in ourselves and in others. Each of us will choose to use what has most meaning to us at this particular time. There is no “one size fits all.” But if any of it can be of use to anyone, this is enough.
The fulfillment of the vision of a new life on earth will take everyone discovering and expressing their particular gift and unique contribution to the healing and maturation of the Whole of Life.
The fate of the earth and our species’ life on it is at stake.
Many are hard at work to find solutions to the myriad problems we face, and time is of the essence. This site is meant as a small contribution to this large effort, focused specifically on the development and maturation of human consciousness/ identity and its impact on the problems we face.
I invite you to make use of these materials as you see fit, and I encourage you to do what you can to respond creatively to the critical times we face as a species.