A Call to Conscious Evolution :
Our Moment of Choice
Our Moment of Choice
|
 On July 26, 2008, the Chopra Foundation, the Source of Synergy Foundation and the Association for Global New Thought invited a group of renowned Evolutionary Leaders to the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, California, to explore their extraordinary potential as a collective. Out of this gathering came A Call to Conscious Evolution: Our Moment of Choice.
Since then, additional leaders have joined this effort and together they have established a collective platform that is generating various exciting projects. In the coming year the group plans to connect with other conscious evolutionaries in the movement to more profoundly accelerate the shift in consciousness together. For details about 60 Evolutionary Leaders: In Service to Conscious Evolution: visit http://www.evolutionaryleaders.net/acalltoconsciousevolution/evolutionary-leaders A Call to Conscious Evolution
Climate change, economic disparity, educational inequities, geopolitical tensions - these mounting concerns are symptoms of a world that is out of balance. Together we can shift consciousness by co-creating a new way of being together. The Call to Conscious Evolution was born following a gathering of global visionaries. It's a movement that fully supports that the future is not what happens to us, but rather what WE create. Together, we can co-create a new narrative of conscious evolution by:
In this great time of uncertainty, join us in elevating consciousness to create a better world. One governed by meaning and purpose. Accept nothing less. Every voice counts - YOUR voice counts. Our Moment of Choice The human family is in the midst of the most significant transformation of consciousness since its emergence in Africa over one hundred thousand years ago. Consciousness has been evolving for billions of years from the first cell to us. We are becoming aware that through our own consciousness the universe can know itself. This awareness reveals incredible new potential for our individual and collective humanity. Simultaneously, we are the first species on this Earth aware that we can destroy ourselves by our own action. This may be the greatest wake-up call to the evolution of consciousness since the origin of Homo sapiens. We now realize that we are affecting our own evolution by everything we do. This knowledge awakens in us the aspiration to become more conscious through subjective practices including meditation, reflection, prayer, intuition, creativity, and conscious choice, accelerating our evolution in the direction of unity consciousness and inspiring us to deeply align our collective vision. THE CHALLENGE At this juncture in human history, urgent global crises challenge us to learn to live sustainably, in harmony and gratitude with one another and with the living universe. The changes required of humanity are broad, deep and far reaching. Only by acting swiftly and creatively can we birth a planetary culture that will bring well-being to every form of life in the Earth community. The good news is that a compelling new story of our potential as a whole human species is emerging – a story of collaboration, citizen action, dialogue and new understandings propelled by unprecedented levels of democratic freedom, multicultural exchange, and access to communication technologies. It is nothing less than the story of our collective evolution. OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION We recognize that the inner and outer aspects of life evolve together. A dramatic awakening in consciousness will involve an equally dramatic shift in outward aspects of our lives. In particular, we see the following as vital opportunities for our conscious evolution, both personally and collectively: Cultivating a Paradigm of Aliveness: We regard the universe as deeply alive and conscious by nature. In a living universe, our sense of subtle connection and participation with life around us is the basis for a compassionate and co-operative approach to living. Educating for an Evolving Consciousness: Awakening consciousness is the foundation for all the change we seek to see in the world. We can work to elevate our capacity for conscious reflection and creative action in our personal lives as well as our collective lives as communities. We must support research and educational strategies that optimize human capacities and explore the nature of consciousness. Restoring Ecological Balance: The balance of planetary ecosystems is fundamental to our survival. We must reverse the pollution of our global commons – the water, air and soil that nourish all life. We must encourage the proliferation of clean, renewable energy sources and expend all necessary resources toward mitigating the effects of climate change. Encouraging Conscious Media: We must find innovative ways to use the new electronic media as the mirror of our positive evolutionary story, investing in their capacity to reach across differences of generation, culture, religion, wealth, and gender to build a working consensus about our collective future. Engaging in Social and Political Transformation: More sustainable ways of living will require the support of a more conscious democracy and vibrant civil society from which more enlightened leaders will emerge. All individuals should be encouraged to use their gifts to create participatory, responsible and compassionate models of governance. Working for Integrity in Commerce: Conscious businesses that are aware of the scope, depth, and long-range impacts of their actions are key to achieving sustainability. Business must become an ethical steward of the Earth’s ecology and consciously establish an economic basis for a future of equitably shared abundance. Promoting Health and Healing: The science of mind-body-spirit health has demonstrated the profound connection between the health of a whole person and the health of the system in which he or she lives. Whole systems healing, respecting both traditional knowledge and modern sciences, must be supported in physical, social, and spiritual domains. Building Global Community: The new story is about all of us who share this planet. Together, we can create a culture of peace that eliminates the need for armed conflict, respecting and appreciating the glorious diversity of our human family. YOUR PARTICIPATION IS VITAL Our group has done its best to articulate possibilities for the evolution of consciousness at this crucial moment in time. Please reflect on this document, feel what resonates in your being and calls forth a response on your part. We invite you to discuss it with others, continuing this global conversation by adding to it the wisdom that is uniquely your own. Together, let us co-create a new narrative of conscious evolution that is a call to individual and collective action, birthing the most significant transformation of consciousness in history. Join in the Call to Conscious Evolution by signing the pledge now. Context for A Call to Conscious Evolution IF NOT US, WHO? IF NOT NOW, WHEN? Our economy is in crisis, wars are continuing to add to their deadly toll, and the balance of world power is shifting dramatically. Meanwhile, trust in government is at a historic low. Are we entering an era of chaos and decline, or are we poised to jump to a higher order? TODAY’S MOUNTING WORLD PROBLEMS ARE MERELY SYMPTOMS of a fractured, dualistic way of thinking (us vs. them, human vs. nature, win/lose) that is dangerously out of touch with the acute inter-dependence, wholeness and unity in diversity of all that lives. Looking outward but not inward, reacting to external symptoms but not the root cause, we can’t see why our world is out of balance. No wonder! As Einstein famously said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” “Throughout history, the really fundamental changes in societies have come about not from dictates of governments and the results of battles but through vast numbers of people changing their minds. By deliberately changing the internal image of reality, people can change the world.” (Willis Harman, Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century) Only such a shift in our shared field of consciousness, a collective waking up to our real human potential, will put us on the path to a life-enhancing future. But how can such a shift occur? Will it happen only after a fatal tipping point has been reached, with nothing to break our fall, or can we now intentionally choose to wake up to our shared responsibility for our future? Signing the Call to Conscious Evolution: Our Moment of Choice may seem to you like a small, merely symbolic action. Yet even a single butterfly moving its wings can, according to Chaos Theory, cause a ripple effect large enough to change global weather patterns forever. Consciousness, similarly, is a unified field that can shift dramatically when the spontaneous emergence of new possibility captures increasing attention. Witness the sudden, over-night collapse of the Soviet system of communism when the real possibility of freedom took hold in people’s minds. As you join in signing this historic document, and as you go on to initiate conversations about our collective future as this document invites, you can be confident that your voice will be heard and your profound influence powerfully felt. This Call to Conscious Evolution: Our Moment of Choice was jointly issued by thirty-eight thought leaders and change agents whose names you will find listed below. They share a global, long-range perspective and a deep faith in our combined creative capacities to shape our own destiny. The future, in their view, is not what “happens to us” but rather what we can NOW imagine - actually see, taste and feel - as possible and then go forward to create through our actions. This group of individuals who met to address the global prospects for evolutionary leadership on July 26, 2008, at the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, CA, were invited by the Chopra Foundation, Source of Synergy Foundation, and Association for Global New Thought. Their legitimacy however comes from a universal mandate that empowers us all: If not us, who? If not now, when? These collective thought leaders know that the way we create meaning and purpose in our lives is through the narratives we tell about ourselves, where we’ve come from, what we aim for and why - and if we don’t like the way it’s reading now, we can change our story. This is a radical view of human freedom at a time that many fear our fate has already been sealed. The butterfly, for which the global ripple effect is named, is a potent symbol of transformation. While mere change can mean becoming an ever bigger caterpillar, transformation is fundamentally different. The caterpillar inside its cocoon dissolves into a liquid carrying imaginal cells that construct an entirely new kind of creature with great beauty and the power of flight. The human imagination has a similar power - to perceive entirely new possibilities in our present conditions and to bring those possibilities into being. That is why Einstein also reasoned, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Signing the Call to Conscious Evolution: Our Moment of Choice signifies that you are ready to begin encircling our world, as its old forms are dissolving, with fresh imagining of what is possible, to share this sense of possibility with as many others as you can, and to work with them to consciously create with guided action a peaceful, just, harmonious and vibrantly beautiful world that reflects in every way the true nobility of our common humanity. The time has come. |
