Conscious Evolution

Today blogs team up to help environment. As sustainability is a matter very close to my heart, I simply cannot resist joining this initiative.

Sustainability is a much heard word these days. It would seam we are waking up to the importance of being responsible inhabitants of this planet. Good for us!
The whole notion of "saving the planet" strikes me as a major misunderstanding though. The planet Earth existed long before humans appeared on Earth and, as I imagine - in the worst case scenario, it will exist long after human race is extinct.

We are facing big issues. The climate is undergoing a dramatic change, and it appears to be a threat to us, but - really - should the worse happen, the life in its simplest manifestation will go on. That's why I'm not concerned about the planet being saved. I feel that we simply need to take care of ourselves. Maybe the time has come to replace self-centered, egotistic, reckless behaviours with ones that are expression of care. Care of which foundation is a REAL, cellular-level understanding that everything is interconnected and we all are an integral part of the world we live in. That by taking care of ourselves we will also take care of everything that needs to be taken care of, because they are different facets of the very same thing.

I think that there is a lot of emphasis and reliance on our intellectual ability to comprehend what is at stake here, in the present moment of the relatively short existence of the thinking and feeling creatures that we are, and an essential lack or deficit of a sort of understanding that springs directly from a fundamental shift in the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us (which includes other people), and the relationship between the two.

It might sound complicated but simply boils down to the inability to look at stuff with our hearts. Our minds rule, quite literally. Hence, another challenging issue on our hands is an escalating conflict between different cultures. We fail to acknowledge what we have in common and choose to focus on imagined dissimilarities.

If we don't evolve we will become extinct species. It's as simple as that. And it strikes me that it is our consciousness that needs to evolve, not so much our bodies.

There are conscious evolution curricula out there available to all those wanting to deepen their understanding of 'the bigger picture',explore ideas of how we got to where we are now, as a human race, as a civilization, how to get to see the paradigms we are operating out of and which our culture is based upon, how to make conscious choices in life, rather than mechanical ones.

I can recommend a handful of organizations based on my own experience.

First of all Concord Institute (formerly Community Health Foundation) with their brilliant curriculum integrating healthy eating, bodywork and an array of conscious evolution programmes.

Do check out Landmark Education with its inspiring vision (and a very convincing track record) of powerfully transforming people's relationships with themselves, others and life.

There also is Kindling Point, which is

"an educational initiative fostering awareness of the non-separate nature of life and supporting the unfolding of human potential".

Kindling Point is my personal favourite. It is a community based international organization the work of which I find to be right at the forefront of today's transformational work. Boldest, most courageous, most beautifully embracing the spirit, most heart-felt, most powerful - in my experience.

For me sustainability is a factor of love and knowing oneself. I can only be sustainable if I care with all my heart and don't give in to futile trains of thoughts "thinking" that I cannot possibly make any difference, and who am I anyway?

I am an expression of life on this planet. And so are you. We have hearts. We can choose.