Kosmos Journal

I have just returned from a remarkable weekend. Were people of wisdom there? Oh yes, many. Was the program filled with leading edge insights on the latest value-driven, integral evolutionary wisdom? Yes. That too. Amazing as this is, imagine that there was something more, something new, something so life enhancing that it expanded your soul into our soul.

We are not a group who works or meditates regularly together or even shares the same spiritual or scientific worldview. Actually, we are a group of strangers from many lands and different cultures. Why do we feel as if we are an intimate family who has been scattered across the globe and has found each other for the first time?

We could analyze this phenomenon and attempt to reproduce the experience of collective wisdom with exercises designed to bring cohesiveness to groups. But this was a spontaneous experience captured through an environment and tone of care and concern that permeated every detail of our surroundings and our interactions. We were at the World Summit for Image and Voices of Hope. Our hosts were the Brahma Kumaris.

At each meal we shared animated conversations, enlivened by the high energy of being together. I swear that with every bite, I could actually feel the love that went into the preparation of the food. We felt the love of Nature, too, in the radiating sunshine and clear blue skies as we breathed the magnificent mountain air.

We are a group of journalists and artists expanding the possibilities of new media with a conscience. We are professional journalists and investigative reporters finding ways to circumvent the corporate and political obstacles that prevent authentic and meaningful information from being aired to the public. We are creative artists finding ways to complement analysis with the immediacy of reporting by people who actually live the story. We are artists glorifying public spaces with beauty. We are musicians creating new music for a generation who hear sound in a totally different way. We are creating community through open-space innovations in radio and television inviting citizens to tell their stories and to be part of the news. We discovered that the essential ingredient of our creativity is freedom, both inside and outside. Most of us are literally compelled from within to find a way to free ourselves from cultural conditioning, financial obligations, and institutional blockages to make it possible to present news that matters.

It was not that we all have one project we are destined to fulfill to together. It is more that the diversity of our purposes is unified around a compelling need to transform and expand media into a meaningful enterprise. Our collectivity nurtures the actualization of our individual contribution to the whole.

The resonance that we share is born out of a commitment to transform ourselves in preparation for a new planetary community. Recognizing that we are part of both the problem and the solution, we have worked on ourselves to overcome states of consciousness and cultural temptations that could spiral us down into defeat, fear and anger. Even when things went wrong during our weekend gathering, we were proactive, looking for solutions rather than complaining. We responded to little imperfections by ‘just letting go’ and tackled the real problems with courage. We had established a field of collective freedom. The purity of these precious hours together gave us the freedom to tap into our deepest wisdom and find authentic truths. The beauty of this type of gathering is its lack of singularity. It is being replicated all over the world by different professions and communities. Out of the ashes of depleted cultures, great hope and wisdom is rising. Groups in every country are recognizing their responsibility to change themselves to change the world. They are finding others to join them in transforming all our institutions and together to create a sustainable future.

Have you ever been enthralled with brilliant minds spinning effective creative ideas that make a difference? Have you ever been in a room permeated with what seems like the ever-present scent of roses? I believe that this kind of environment is evoking the collective and embodied wisdom of our future.

P.S. For more about new media breakthroughs see the next issue of Kosmos.