The most important call of the times is to constructively manage the emerging planetary civilization while honoring the diversity of cultures and to expand ourselves to embrace the full meaning of planetary consciousness, the essential interdependence and interconnectedness of all living beings and the earth. We are being asked to open our minds and hearts to the possible. Are we able to transcend our self-interest to find the heart of the global synthesis of which we are a part? Are we able to find a balance between egoistic interests and care and concern for the common good? Can we balance sovereignty of nations and a new world culture? On the outer levels the process of globalization is happening as we speak, creating the need for whole systems changes and new ways of thinking about complexity and diversity. On the inner levels alienation from ourselves, each other, nature, and a higher power have created the need for new skills, capacities and understandings to reconnect us to the source of our true essence. The times are calling each person to a deeper meaning and truth, to compassion, love, courage, reverence of the human spirit and belief in our capacity to co-create our emergent future. Our innate but unrealized capacities awaken when we are challenged by new life conditions. Each major transition in cultural evolution from agrarian, to industrial to information ages or from egocentric, to sociocentric to worldcentric perspectives has awakened latent skills and capacities unknown before. We are asked now to develop the skills and capacities necessary to create a new social planetary order that will embrace and enhance Life.

Expanding the Mind: An Integral Approach to Understanding Complexity

To deal with the complexity of our era requires a multilevel and multidimensional approach. Leading edge researchers of cultural evolution have amassed the information we need to begin to expand our approach to global understanding. The Integral Approach* of Ken Wilber and Spiral Dynamics* of Don Beck, combined, offer a comprehensive framework of human behavior and social processes to understand and deal with the diversity, complexity, and rapid social change characteristic of our times. Don Beck says that simplistic solutions must be replaced by a rich understanding and respect for diversities in people, uniqueness in situations, and inevitable steps and stages in human emergence. Rigid rules, a product of fixed state ideologies, must be supplanted by fluctuating algorithm that engage a world full of variables, life cycles, wild cards and other complex dynamics that lie at the core of life itself. External, top-down solutions have not worked.

Multidimensional Approach: Reality consists of 4 dimensions or perspectives all of which must be addressed if we are to avoid distortion from partiality. We are individuals living in collective contexts and in two worlds - interior and exterior. Individuals and cultures consist of both material (body, demographics, systems and organization) and non-material (cultural values, mind, heart, intention, spiritual, worldviews) dimensions - objective and subjective and we are the Witness of it all. Today the emphasis on the objective, scientific, materialistic and economic aspects of life are out of balance with the subjective human, social and spiritual dimensions. United Nations' programs and policies are generally lacking in the recognition that in addition to outer changes, transformation requires inner changes of deep values, attitudes, meaning and purpose. Don Beck says, external approaches designed to improve the human condition are faulted unless they also include, as parallel and simultaneous tracks, the essential steps and stages in interior development. In short, economic, political and technological efforts must correlate with the levels of complexity of thinking within individuals and entire cultures. Unless external efforts match existing capacities, we will make matters worse rather than better by imposing our own values rather than what is needed. We must begin to look at the root of our conflicts at a deeper internal level.

Multilevel Approach: According to evolutionary research, growth of individuals, cultures, and nations unfolds in stages or steps, none of which can be skipped. Each stage transcends and includes the previous one. We evolve through a great spiral of existence driven by internal dynamics and shifting life conditions. Spiral Dynamics is a way to think about complexity and diversity through core intelligences and deep values that flow beneath the surface of what we believe and do (Beck). As Life Conditions change and old solutions do not work the neurological system in the brain awakens latent mental capacities to cope with increasingly complex life conditions. Individuals, organizations, nations, cultures and civilizations are at different stages of bio-psycho-social-spiritual emergence of complexity and therefore require economic and political solutions that correlate with these levels of complexity. Our deep values determine how we think and what our responses are to the world around us. Strain between these systems is the home of all human conflict, understanding, and mis-understanding. These (deep values) are the sum total of the invisible, cultural, and spiritual forces that drive our perceptions, influence all of life's choices, lifestyles and sense of what is right, wrong, and appropriate, says Caleb Rosado. Differences between people and cultures are not merely differences of race, religion, geography and gender, but are based on deep value differences and mind sets. We must look below the surface now into the deeper reaches of the mind and ways of thinking that create diversity as we enter into deep dialogue with one another to explore the mindsets that drive our outer behavior

We need integrative thinking to solve the life challenges that we face in building a planetary civilization According to Beck, while the eight levels are all legitimate expressions of the human experience, they are not 'equal' in their capacity to deal with complex problems in society. Stages 7 (process oriented) and 8 (synthesis oriented) are the first stages where we are not unconsciously embedded in a particular perspective, and are able to work objectively with diverse perspectives. All stages of the spiral must be healthy for movement to occur when life conditions evoke it.

Research indicates that the natural development of humanity is in the direction of synthesis and the recognition that we are from one source, are one family, and are ultimately One as all religions have traditionally taught. This offers us hope that humanity will successfully meet the challenges of the times.

Expanding the Heart: A New Spirituality for New Times

With emerging globalization and new communications technology advanced there has been a cross fertilization of all religions, with the increasing possibility of exposure to many different paths. We may express our spirituality today through religious traditions or spiritual exploration and direct experience of the sacred. We are living our spirituality increasingly in spiritual contemplation and in responsible social action. Our focus is on the relationship to the self, to others, to nature, and to the divine. We cannot compartmentalize religion today. What we truly believe is reflected in every aspect of our lives.

Relationship to Self. We know that we must prepare ourselves to be the creators of our new planetary civilization, developing our own hidden potential to play our part. We are learning how to pay attention to our reactions, which are habitual and culturally conditioned. We are working to remove psychological and cultural obstructions that prevent us from living from our highest selves. We know we do not see the world as it is but as we are. We are moving from dualistic thinking of scientific materialism to unitive thinking; from either/or to both/and thinking, where every perspective has a place in the whole. We are learning how to exercise our imaginative faculties to increase our creativity and how to elevate our thinking by exposure to beauty, truth and goodness. We know that we must change ourselves to change the world. Our own being becomes an instrument for change and upliftment when our presence radiates serenity and love. We are coming to understand that we ourselves create reality by our selective attention that constantly chooses between life's possibilities.

Relationship to Others. We are convening in small groups committed to social change and learning how to create the conditions and environments where higher values can emerge and where our capacities and sensibilities can deepen. We are opening our hearts to forgiveness and reconciliation. We are networking at International Conferences and on the Internet, building a strong international civil society committed to social action. We experiment with circles, hierarchies, and something in between as we strive to find appropriate structures to meet each challenge we face together and to include all voices in the conversation. We are democratizing our skills, which in the past have belonged only to the few.

Relationship to Nature. We revere nature and all life and are committed to preserving the health of our planet for future generations. We study and apply natural organic principles to our work. We are interested in all revelations of science: biology, astronomy, brain research etc. as they reveal deep truths about who we are and our place in the universe. Space explorations of bring a sense of awe, reverence and perspective for the magnificence of the boundless cosmos in which our fragile planet spirals around the Sun.

Relationship to the Divine. We seek connection to the divine in ways learned from different traditions. We find spiritual guidance and comfort within and at the highest level we seek mystical identification with the sacred whole to which we all belong. We are aware of the value of healthy conscience and that still, small voice within that guides us to the Good. We seek through meditation and emptying our thoughts to transcend our cultural conditioning. Through silence we prepare ourselves to be receptive and sensitive to divine presence and purpose by slowly awakening our spiritual senses.

* Wilber, Ken A Brief History of Everything Shambhala, 1996.

Beck, Don Spiral Dynamics, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford UK 1996