Posts Tagged ‘Spirit’

Announcing my newest book: “Spirit on Earth: An Operating System for a Spiritual Society”

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Howdy–

A lot has shifted for me in recent months.  I want to share that with you, and give you some news on my new book and related activities.

The recent events in Sri Lanka have affected me deeply.  The Sri Lankan government’s willingness to kill and imprison an entire population in pursuit of their goal to eliminate the Tigers is appalling.  Even more difficult for me has been Sarvodaya’s silence in the face of this nightmare.  Because of confidentiality, I cannot go into the details of this matter.  However, suffice it to say that they are NOT following my STRONG advice.

In the face of this setback for peace, in the face of the temporary triumph of violence and fear, I asked myself a question: have I wasted the last 14 years?

The answer that came back from that introspection was a resounding NO!  I have learned a lot from my international work, in Sri Lanka, in Cuba, in Argentina, in Russia, in Venezuela, in many other places in the world.  I have understood what makes societies work, and I’ve learned when and how they fail.  I’ve learned the difficulties of keeping to one’s values in the face of adversity, and how easy it is to go along with popular opinion, even when that opinion violates your core values. I’ve learned what it means to be alive in the beginning of the 21st Century, and what it’s going to take to create a world for all beings.

I have also been searching through over 100 distinct cultures, looking for the common spiritual threads that unite humanity and connect us with the Divine.  And, I’ve found them.

Every year, I use my birthday as a time to reflect back on my life, to look at how things have been and where I’m going.  (I turned 58 in March.)

For the past 50 years, I have been witness to the NEED for a new society.  For the past 30 years, I have been ENVISIONING the system that will lead us to that society.

For the past 15 years, I have been both discovering and field-testing the elements of a new operating system in places like Sri Lanka, Cuba, Argentina, Bali and now Nepal. I have learned what works (regardless of how improbable or unlikely) and I’ve learned what doesn’t work (despite how good it looks on paper).

And, for the past several months, I’ve been writing down what I have learned about Spirit and society.  So, on the 20th anniversary of “The Power of One” and the 10th anniversary of “Creating a World That Works for All”, I am doing a new book, my most comprehensive.

My working title is: SPIRIT ON EARTH: AN OPERATING SYSTEM FOR A SPIRITUAL SOCIETY. Our challenge: to practically apply our spiritual values in the world, in a realistic way that we can save humanity and save the Earth. My goal is to envision a system that can work in Oregon and in Egypt, in New York and New Delhi, in Kathmandu and in Chattanooga. I am articulating what I call the “Relational Operating System”, as the replacement for (and antidote to) Breaker systems such as capitalism, communism/ socialism and any other human system based on separation and exclusivity (including most religions as practiced).

We know quite well what doesn’t work.  Our problem is that we don’t know what will.  For the first time in human history, our technology has outstripped our imagination.  Recently, one of my critics wrote: “If socialism has failed we might as well embrace our coming extinction.”  Isn’t that sad?  In his self-limited mind, there are only two thoughts in the world: capitalism and communism/socialism.  You can only have one or the other…

My new book will offer a solution to this dilemma.

I plan a very unique 3-step presentation/ rollout for “Spirit on Earth”:

COREBOOK:  First, there will be a short “corebook” that will contain the essence of the concept.  The corebook will be “launched” on 14 July (my late mother’s birthday, as well as the French Bastille Day – a good enough time to talk about the liberation of humanity… from itself).  I am aiming for the corebook to be about the size and length of “The Power of One”.

I intend to offer this corebook as SHAREWARE!  People will pay for it as they can, and to the degree they derive value from it.  The intention is to BROADCAST “Spirit on Earth” widely.  The goal here is maximum impact… well beyond the “usual suspects” that have populated Commonway’s database.  I am also looking for some definitely non-traditional distribution methods.  I’m going to seek some funding (probably from Fetzer Institute) to support the distribution.

SOURCEBOOK:  Next, I will write and publish a “full” text of the concept.  I am aiming for a December, 2009 publication.  This will be available in a more traditional format.  The sourcebook may be attractive to a publisher (especially if the launch of the corebook is successful).

THREE IN-DEPTH BOOKS:  Depending on what happens with the sourcebook, I intend to write up to 3 other books in 2010 or 2011, one each on Consciousness, Economics and Power.  (Most of the text has already been gathered.)

In addition: I intend to offer a series of new workshops and seminars, all based on how to understand and implement the Relational Operating System.

What I need from you is three things: spiritual support, networking support, and financial support.

1. Spiritual Support: One of the things that I learned from Sarvodaya: focused spiritual activity can shift the “psychosphere” the field of human thought. All it takes is focused will. Through your prayers, affirmations and meditations, you can help me to establish this one thought: “IT IS TIME FOR US TO LIVE OUR VALUES”. That will help prepare the ground for “Spirit on Earth”.

2. Networking Support: Each of you is part of a network. Some are obvious, like Facebook or MySpace. Others are less obvious (and more “human”): your church group, your school groups, your neighbors. By seeding the question – “WHAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR US TO TRULY LIVE OUR VALUES?”, you will be helping me to prepare the ground for what I hope will be a major dialog on our future as humans on this planet.

3. Financial Support:  I am working as full time as my schedule allows (while monitoring the situations in Sri Lanka, Nepal and elsewhere, and doing some fee-based contract work during the summer).  What I need from you is financial support.  The more financial energy I get from you, the less I have to stop writing to do fee-based work to cover expenses.

I have already received a few generous donations, totaling over $1,000 toward my goal of $8,000 to complete this book by mid-July.  This money will keep Commonway going, as well as allow me to hire a page editor, cover designer and other behind-the-scenes people who turn a collection of ideas into a BOOK.

Those who donate $100 or more to the corebook development and launch, will get a “Producers” credit in the book itself!

To Donate: Click on the “donate” button on the lower left-hand column on any page of the Commonway website:  http://www.commonway.org/.  After making your donation, please send me an email saying that you would like the funds applied to the “Spirit on Earth” book launch.  (And remember: I still accept donations the “old fashioned” way: paper checks made out to “Commonway Institute” and mailed to:

COMMONWAY INSTITUTE

P.O. BOX 12541

PORTLAND, OR 97212

If you have any questions about this, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Peace,

Sharif

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Obama Voters: The Task is Not Yet Done

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

MEMORANDUM

TO: THOSE WHO VOTED FOR BARACK OBAMA
FR: SHARIF ABDULLAH
DT: TODAY
RE: CREATING AN “OBAMA MOVEMENT”: THE TASK IS NOT YET DONE.

Congratulations. With your vote, you have achieved something that has never been done before in history (on multiple levels). Next week, on January 20th, take a moment to savor this truly transformative moment in history.

Then, on January 21st, stop savoring. You’ve got more work to do.

I believe that you voted for Barack Obama because you truly wanted change in our society. I believe Obama when he said that YOU, that each of us, is responsible for making this change happen.

So, let’s get started.

We can wait for Obama to get around to thinking about societal transformation, or we can act on our own collective vision. (I personally think that “The Boss” is going to have his hands full for a long while. I think the financial collapse/ transformation is going to take up a lot more of his attention than most of us realize right now. I believe this crisis is MUCH WORSE than anyone is letting on right now.)

So, it’s time to act on our vision. But, first, we need to HAVE a collective vision.

What is the vision of our society, as we enter the 21st Century? Where will that vision come from? The Left? The Right? Or, will the vision be forged in a heart-felt dialog of the whole?

Most of us haven’t taken the time to think about a vision and comprehensive, sustainable strategy. We rely on outmoded concepts of decades (or even centuries) ago. We get all worked up over concepts like “Progressive” or “Conservative” – the men (!) who came up with those concepts never experienced life in the 21st Century.

Narrow Issues or Broad Vision?
I am frankly disappointed by what some Obama supporters have been putting up on the Obama website (www.change.gov). He has been asking for ideas and input to the “Citizen’s Briefing Book”. Some of the ideas are “good”, many are “mediocre” and almost none are “visionary” or “transformative”. Going through scores of comments, most of them were about “gay marriage” or “legalizing marijuana”. Regardless of my personal feelings on either subject, neither of these narrow issues will get us to a society that works for all.

I am also less than interested in supporting or opposing any particular legislative agenda or bill. Congress is not going to solve our problems… we are. I am not concerned about “Health Care” or “Transportation” or “Social Security”. I am concerned about the values, vision and direction of our society.

We’re not going to LEGISLATE our way to a transformed society. We are not going to float to safety on a raft woven together out of narrow “Progressive” (or “Conservative”) issues. We need a broad, inclusive vision. In the words of Lincoln: “As our cause is new, we must now think anew and act anew”.

Our Beginning…
It’s time for us to develop a vision for our future. It’s time for some follow-through. In this time of new beginnings, it is time for YOU to begin.

So, what do you do, starting on 21 January? Here are three steps (a nice easy number to start with).

1. Let Go
2. Search for a Common Vision
3. Dialogs for a Common Future

1. LET GO.
You can’t reach the far shore by holding on to the familiar. Letting go of the familiar can feel frightening, but it can also feel exhilarating. Not letting go means that you are trapped within the bars of your own prison.

In some tropical societies, people eat monkeys. They trap them by cutting a small hole into a gourd, dropping in a piece of fruit, staking the gourd to the ground, and waiting. A monkey will come by, stick its hand in for the fruit and try to withdraw both its hand and the fruit. The trapper simply walks up, sticks the squealing, struggling monkey into a bag, then off to the stew-pot. At any time, the monkey can escape by simply letting go of the piece of fruit. It is not trapped by the gourd – it is trapped by its greed and desires. The monkey is trapped by its inability to let go.

What traps you? Where do you need to “let go”? Here are 2 suggestions:

a. Let go of “Progressive” and “Conservative” labels
b. Let go of “Normal”

a. Let go of “Progressive” and “Conservative” labels.
These labels represent old thinking that Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson would be comfortable with. These figments of our imagination used to carry meaning and weight – now, they are just lazy ways of thinking. These labels of separation provide a false identity and an equally false sense of community. They get in the way of us figuring out what we need to do, together, as we face this turbulent 21st Century. Having a nice sounding, convenient “lazy” label means that you don’t have to answer the difficult questions:

• What the key values that you hold in common?
• What is your common vision of a sustainable future that works for all (including people who don’t like you)?
• What are you willing to sacrifice to realize this envisioned future?

I am neither “Progressive” nor “Conservative”. (I’m also not a Whig, nor a Tory, nor any other outmoded conceptual label.) I am a MENDER. What does that mean? It means that I am committed to catalyzing a society with INCLUSIVITY as our highest value. I am committed to working with EVERYONE ELSE who shares this value. I am committed to working FOR all other beings – whether or not they share my values or my vision. I am committed to fixing this Mess – regardless of who created it.

I am committed to a world that works for all.

The Lifeboat:
Assume that you are in a life boat with 50 people. There’s enough food and water on board for about half that number. It’s leaking. Ten of the folks on the boat are committed “Progressives”. Ten are committed “Conservatives”. And 30 are just watching television, or wondering when someone is going to come along and feed them.

How would you organize the lifeboat for the good of all? What tools will you use? Do your labels of “Progressive” or “Conservative” mean anything in the context of a leaky lifeboat?

If you are sitting in a leaky lifeboat without enough food or water for all the inhabitants, the first thing you work on is NOT “gay marriage” or a “flat tax”. Note: I am not saying that either gay marriage or a flat tax are inherently bad ideas. I’m just saying that, if your house is on fire, you don’t worry about vacuuming the rugs. And, if you are vacuuming the rugs, it’s because you don’t believe that the house is on fire.

b. Let go of “Normal”.
We must let go of concepts like “emergency” and “crisis”. These concepts imply that there is a “normal” we are trying to get back to, once our “emergency” is over. For example: our present financial crisis is not a problem that we need to “fix” and then we can go back to “normal”. We need to see this for what it is: a major collapse and restructuring of our basic economy, a restructuring of how we choose to relate to each other.

Twenty years ago, “Communism” collapsed. It went from being the second most powerful political economy to being an historical footnote. And good riddance.

Now, it’s “Capitalism’s” turn. And good riddance. These man-made structures, based on fundamentally flawed consciousness (“I am separate”) must pass away, if we are to achieve a world that works for all. It’s time for a NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY.

We saw what happened to Communism. We could have spent our time preparing. We had 20 years to put a new economy together, test-drive it, put together seeding experiments… we had 20 years to prepare for a soft landing. We squandered that time. ALL OF US squandered our lead. Many of us wasted time in an orgy of financial gluttony. Others wasted time pointing fingers, blaming others, various conspiracy theories, feeding the fires of fear. And now, we still have the task in front of us… with only a few months to spare.

For the past decade, I have had the honor of working toward a new political economy with Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne and the rest of the Sarvodaya Movement in Sri Lanka. We’ve been working to blend the VISIONARY with the PRACTICAL, for a new direction – beyond war and violence (“Progressive” values) and toward small government and personal/community responsibility (“Conservative” values). (More on this in a subsequent blog.)

2. Search for a Common Vision.

Our Founders articulated a simple but immense Vision: out of the shadows of monarchy and feudalism, the Founders envisioned a society where all humans were equal, and had rights that no human could alienate, because no human provided them. I still find the boldness and straightforwardness of this vision truly amazing.

However, because of their personal shortcomings and weaknesses, the Founders never enacted that vision. Instead, they created a world where the “rights” of humans with different colored skin or different genitalia could be alienated on a whim. A democracy of, by and for privileged white males. The turbulent and often tragic history of the United States has been scarred by their inability to enact their vision.

It’s time to move a collective vision forward again. All of us, together, must start the task of articulating our common vision, common values and common goals. All of us, as humans on this planet, must start the task of articulating a common vision for humanity.

A Vision of the Spirit
Our common vision must be infused with Spirit. (No, I am NOT talking about “religion”, or who gets to utter what prayer at which Inaugural function.)

As an Obama supporter, I know you’ve felt that Spirit. I know you felt the promise of our times in the weeks preceding the election. I know you felt that Spirit on Election Day itself, as we witnessed spontaneous outpourings of joy all across the country and across the world.

And… I know that the last few weeks have been a bit of a let-down, as we watch Obama being slowly gobbled up by the Beltway Bureaucracy. On Tuesday, 20 January, Obama stops being a free agent and starts exercising his Constitutionally mandated (and limited) role. But, remember: WE ARE STILL FREE AGENTS! We can, we must, and we will envision and enact a collective, Spirit driven future. As Obama is the SYMBOL of change; we shall be the AGENTS of change.

3. Dialogs for a Common Future
The dialog movement in America is alive and well. Dialogic processes at the local level are how people have begun to reach out to their neighbors. The role that government, the Church and social organizations played in the past, the dialog movement performs now. Its how people have begun to clarify what is important. Its how people have revived the lost arts of conversation, discourse and finding common ground.

And no, I’m not talking about “talk radio”, the equivalent to shouting into a darkened room.

Now, it’s time we started “dialogs with teeth”. Dialogs with meaning. Dialogs as though our future depended on each other. I see dialogs on:

• Food, Water & Energy Security
• Forging a Common Vision (the precursor to a long overdue Constitutional Convention)
• Elements of a New Economy
• Our universal moral/spiritual principles.

It’s our country. It’s our moment. We sit in the potential of a movement. Let’s get to work! Starting on January 21st, 2009, let’s work to make that potential real!!

Peace,

Sharif

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The Spiritual Society

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

[This was written a few Christmas seasons ago:]

It is so easy to fall back into the rut — naming the old society. Protesting the old society. Lamenting the old society. Struggling to reform the old society. Thinking that if we could only get rid of the old society, we would then have a the society of our dreams, our ideals.

This past December, I was sitting at one of my coffeehouses ( not my favorite, but one that makes great eggnog lattes). I was reading a good book, and was in the middle of the buying frenzy on 23rd Avenue. Suddenly, I realized that I was depressed.

I tried to analyze my feelings. I wasn’t a part of the buying frenzy around me; I don’t really participate in the “Xmas Thing”, so I don’t have any seasonal guilt, angst, etc. I thought for a moment that I was “homesick” for Sri Lanka — after all, I do spend half of my year there. But a quick internal check said that I didn’t want to be in Sri Lanka. I didn’t want to be ANYWHERE.

That was a sobering thought. There was no society, no country, no city I preferred to inhabit. I didn’t want to be in the land of shallow materialism, where success is measured by how much litter we leave. I didn’t want to be in Sri Lanka, wondering whether the guy at the train station smiling at me is distracting me from a pickpocket doing balance-of-trade, or making a sexual overture for a different type of balance of trade, or was just being friendly. I didn’t want to be in Prague, or Kampala, or Hong Kong, or anywhere else. I had no home.

I’m not being overly melodramatic. I have enjoyed my time back in the States, experiencing cold, actually enjoying chipping ice off my car in the frozen mornings. My feeling is that all of us have a core to retreat to in the face of all of the madness coming at us from all sides. We go home, pull in the walls around us, hopefully with someone who feels the same as we do, and retreat from the yawning emptiness all around us.

We move from nest to nest. We go from our home nest to our work nest to a movie nest to a coffeehouse or restaurant nest… moving about in our auto nest. We communicate with the same handful of people, even when we travel to other countries. (I always find it amazing when Americans attempt to glom on to me when I’m in another country. If I wanted to interact with Americans, I wouldn’t have left Portland.)

We lie to ourselves. Our big lie is that these little nests constitute the entire world, that we are actually interacting with the world when we are in fact interacting with only a tiny sliver of it. We think we are interacting with the world because we think we are looking through a window (television) and think we are interacting with other people. Lie upon lie upon lie.

It is this season where the lies wear thin, where we are brought face to face with the magnitude of our emptiness. I thought back to my challenge to the IONS members meeting a few years ago at Disney World in Florida: look around and see if you can find anyone who looks truly happy. Is there anyone here who is happy because of this season, not despite it?

A few years ago, I got invited to a middle-class feeding frenzy that they called “Christmas with the family”. The extended family met together at 10:00 in the morning to open presents. The children sat on the starting line, engines revving. At the signal, they tore into the pile of wrapped goodies that literally engulfed the christmas tree. Their method: grab a present, tear back enough of the wrappings to see what it is, squeal, throw the present over your shoulder and tear into the next one. After about 15 miinutes of this, all the gifts were open and the adults were sitting in a kind of shock, while the kids were walking around the livingroom like medics walking a battlefield, looking for signs of life and not finding any. After all of the squealing and getting, not one of those kids looked happy. After the orgy of getting, not one of them appeared satisfied.

For some reason, the Divine has provided me with a number of life experiences. I’ve been at the top of Breaker society, having cocktails in Prague Castle with Presidents and Prime Ministers and Nobel Laureates. I’ve had tea with peasants so poor that they had to use that day’s firewood to heat the water for their “honored guest”. I’ve had experiences from the simple to the absurd to the sublime.

What I have seen from these experiences is this:

We have painted ourselves into a very tight corner. We may not survive; we have to accept the possiblity, in the words of Gar Alperovitz, that “Rome dies”. And this “Rome” will take most of the world’s human populations with it.

Before the collapse of Rome, or the Greek city-states, or the European monarchies, most of those at the top did not have a glimmer that there was anything wrong, that they had painted themselves into a corner. Marie Antionette’s now infamous “Let them eat cake!” was not a statement of crudity or callousness — she simply had no experience with a world that did not have an abundance of bread, or cake, or pastry. She would fit right in with most middle-class Americans.

None of the “fixes” we advocate will create the society that we can live in. In some paradoxical way, each “fix” seems to hasten our doom. Many of us (myself included) fought for an end to Apartheid in South Africa. It was only in the last years of the Apartheid regime that I began to ask: what is the nature of the society that all Africans will live in? We visualized a “post-Apartheid” world, but we did not envision the “pre-???” world. And now, the post-apartheid world is a nightmare for most South Africans. For the majority of both blacks and whites, things did not get better, they got infinitely worse.

Let me rush to say that I am not wishing for the “good ole days” of apartheid, or communism, or any other Breaker system. They are gone and good riddance. But, their absence did not make the world a better place to live. We need to think about this as some of us continue to put energy into “post-corporate” or “post-patriarchal” or “post-anything-else”. Its time for us to visualize the “pre-” society.

All of this, the pain, the suffering, the greed, the shallow materialism, the emptiness… all of this points us in a direction. Like saplings bending before a fierce wind, we are all pointing away from the blast point. But, what are we pointing toward? We know what we DON’T want… what do we WANT?

If we are to survive, we must create the Society of the Spirit. A Spirit freed from the bonds of religious dogma, perhaps free from all religion. A society that has one basis of success: how much wealth did you give? A spirituality that has only two tenets: that you love, respect and honor the Divine, and that you treat all other beings the way you yourself wish to be treated. (You are free to add anything else that makes you happy: however, a Society of the Spirit must be based on only these two tenets.)

What do I mean by “society”? I mean a state of consciousness AND a state of behavior that all of the people of the world can join in if they wish. Together, right now, we have an opportunity that has never before existed on this planet: to create together the first true global human society, a society of inclusivity.

A society is the junction between our values and our actions. We can see our values through our actions. We know we don’t believe in “give us your tired and your poor”. We don’t ACT like we want the tired and poor in this country.

How do we get to the Society of the Spirit?

We have to make a commitment to live our values, out loud, every day. We have to recognize those times when we are unable to live our values; when that happens, we have to visualize what a society based on those values looks like. (For example, while pumping gasoline into my fossil-fuel burning, internal combustion engine motivated, single occupant vehicle, I can visualize creating the hydrogen I use to power my fuel-efficient, shared vehicle.)

We have to live our beliefs. I just got in the mail today a notice of a conference to address the needs of the poor. The conference will be held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC (for those of you who have never been to this hotel, trust me: the poor are not allowed inside, unless they are waiting tables).

We have to see that our spiritual practice is how we are with each other, every minute, every day.

We have to teach others how to live. Not how to ape each other in this empty, terminal society, but how to truly LIVE at the top of their being, their most spiritual, creative, connected Self.

THE SOCIETY OF THE MAJORITY

Anyone who has spent time in any truly indigenous society knows this to be true: Breakers don’t have a clue. Most of us raised in the belly of the Beast don’t have the eyes to see how indigenous people live. How can people be truly happy without _________ (fill in the blank: electricity, cars, Internet, running water, prescription medicines…). We then see that it is our God-given responsibility to bring _______ (again, fill in the blank…) to those “heathens”. Including our way of thinking.

How can people exist with courts, police, lawyers? How can people be happy without mass entertainment? How can people know God unless they read THIS book THIS way?

Keepers are happy, because they never left the Sacred Hoop (oneness with the Divine, oneness with all other beings). We will become happy when we figure out how to create that society for ourselves. And, it will be people who live close to the land, the Keepers, who point the way for us.

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