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I HAVE GOOD NEWS about my book SACRED ANATOMY: with the encouragement and generous editing expertise of a long-time and dear friend, we are co-creating an updated Fourth Edition of this insightful contemplative study of our sacred anatomy. So stay tuned and look for a future announcement of its release.
Continuing with this series of considerations on the subject of co-creating a peaceful world, I present in this post another excerpt from Ervin Laszlo’s book THE SURVIVAL IMPERATIVE — Upshifting To Conscious Evolution, A Guide to Returning Peace and Harmony to the Planet. I think you will appreciate the author’s optimism with his seeming utopian vision. Enjoy!
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AN ACHIEVABLE VISION: DATELINE 2050 — PEACE ON THE PLANET
Expecting that people abide by the new moral code does not call for people to become selfless . . . . Living in a way that permits others also to live does not mean that everybody could live in the same way with the same material standard of living. There are differences in wealth and standards of living, but these differences are moderated by the moral injunction regarding the limits of how we can live our lives.
The new morality respects the right of all people to live a life of dignity, spared the deprivations that plagued the poor in the recent past. Being moral does not call for being self-denying – it allows everyone to strive for excellence, beauty, and personal growth. But in the context of an interdependent and finite planet, the enjoyments and achievements of life are to be defined in relation to the quality of enjoyment and level of satisfaction they provide, and not in terms of their monetary cost and the quantity of materials and energy they consume.
BELIEFS
| The traumas and crises that hallmarked the world of the early twenty-first century have not been forgotten: people know that what they believe shapes the world. A periodic reexamination of our core beliefs is a precondition of safeguarding the better world we seek to, and could, create. The beliefs and convictions that emerge in the reexaminations are very different from the beliefs that hallmark today’s world. The decisive elements of the beliefs that shape the 2050 world can be summed up in a few bullet points. * We are part of the web of life on Earth, and the web of life is part of us. We are what we are in our communication and communion with the beings that emerge and evolve in the web of life of this planet. * We are more than skin-and-bone material organisms. Our bodies with their cells and organs are manifestations of what is truly us: self-sustaining, self-evolving, dynamic beings arising and evolving in interaction with all other self-evolving dynamic beings around us. * We are one of the highest, most evolved manifestations of the drive toward coherence in the universe. Our core essence is this universal drive. Recognizing it and aligning with it is both our duty and our privilege as conscious beings. There are no absolute boundaries and divisions in the world, only phase transitions where one set of relations yields prevalence to another. In our bodies, the relations that integrate our cells and organs into a dynamic and coherent whole are prevalent. Beyond our bodies, the relations that drive toward coherence and wholeness with the communities of living beings gain prevalence. * There are no absolute boundaries and divisions in the world, only phase transitions where one set of relations yields prevalence to another. In our bodies, the relations that integrate our cells and organs into a dynamic and coherent whole are prevalent. Beyond our bodies, the relations that drive toward coherence and wholeness with the communities of living beings gain prevalence. * The separate identity we attach to people is a convenient convention that facilitates interaction with them. The whole gamut of concepts and ideas that separates our identities from the identities of other persons is but an arbitrary convention. Tbere are only gradients distinguishing individuals from each other and from their environment, and no categorical divisions and boundaries. * In the final count, there are no “others” in the world: we are all living beings, and we are all part of each other. Our family and community are just as much who we are as the cells and organs of our bodies. * Collaboration, not competition, is the royal road to sustain us and all the beings who inhabit the Earth. Collaboration calls for empathy and solidarity, and ultimately for love. Collaboration inspired by love is the way to achieve health and wellbeing for ourselves, and for all the beings with whom we share The Planet. * Attempting to advantage the beings we know as “us” through ruthless competition with the beings we know as “others” is a grave mistake: it damages the integrity of the embracing whole that frames our fives. When we harm “others,” we harm ourselves. * The idea of advantaging ourselves, even our families, communities, and nations, without regard for the beings we used to regard as “strangers” or “foreigners,” needs to be rethought. Patriotism> if it aims to eliminate adversaries by force, and heroism, even in the well-meaning execution of patriotic aims, is an unwise and dangerous aspiration. A patriot and a hero who brandishes a sword or a gun is an enemy to everyone, himself or herself included. Comprehension, conciliation, and forgiveness are the hallmarks of courage, not championing the ambitions of some without concern for others. * “The good” for anybody in the human community is not the possession of riches. Wealth in any material form is but a means for curating our existence in the embrace of the community of life. As exclusively “mine;’ wealth commandeers part of the resources all living beings need to share. Exclusive wealth is a threat to the communities of life, including the communities of those who hold it. * The true measure of our accomplishment is the measure of our sharing, not of our having. Sharing enhances existence in the communities of life, whereas possessing creates division, invites competition, and fuels envy. The share-society is the norm for the communities of life; the have-society was typical only of the modern age, and it was an aberration. * We and our fathers and forefathers have been guilty of an aberration in the evolutionary path of humanity, and as conscious and responsible members of humanity, we recognize that correcting this aberration is our moral duty and historic responsibility. Beyond the pursuit of deeper love and higher meaning, building a society aligned with life on the planet is the most vital task of our life. |
I will continue sharing Laszlo’s vision of a peaceful world in my next post. I wish you each one a HAPPY THANKSGIVING — and offer you my deep thankfulness and appreciation for your faithful following of my Healing Tones blog — and for sharing my weekly posts with friends and family. Until my next post . . .
Be love. Be loved.
Anthony
tpal70@gmail.com
Healing Tones 
Comments on: "PEACE ON EARTH: A VISION, part 2" (2)
I am thankful for you and your continued healing work. Happy Thanksgiving
Thank you! ❤️