Chapter 7: Crisis and Rebirth
Contents
I. Introduction: Why Now Is Different
IV. Creator-Preserver-Destroyer
I don't think many people would argue that humanity has experienced a lot of crises over its brief (judged in earth years) history. There is this gross overabundance of fear, anger, destruction and suffering. In modern history alone, the number and degree of crises has been immense: genocide, global warming, famine, disease, war, corruption, natural disasters, torture, ignorance, fear. Whatever slight respites there are seem only intended for a quick intake of breath before another tragedy ensues.
What's up with this grotesque pageant? What has become of the promise of the great Prophets, of "Heaven on Earth", a goodly kingdom, a gentle rule by the meak? Before answering, maybe it would be helpful to consider just how brief human history has been. Carl Sagan, the late writer and astronomer, devised a truly breaktaking summary of the history of creation, a Cosmic Calendar, in which every event from the Big Bang to Christopher Columbus is condensed into the space of a single year. With this view, the Big Bang happens on January 1, and apes only begin to appear - after a full 12 months! - at 10:15 am on December 31. Here's a rundown of that final day:
10:15 am - Apes appear
9:24 pm - First human ancestors to walk upright
10:48 pm - First homo erectus appears
11:54 pm - Anatomically modern humans appear
11:59:45 pm - Invention of writing
11:59:50 pm - Pyramids built in Egypt
11:59:59 pm (one second before midnight!) - Voyage of Columbus to the New World
Considering this timeframe, we really haven't waited all that long for the promises of the prophets to be fulfilled. In fact, you can group the periods of crisis and respite into three distinct phases: Birth, the period of history when man evolved into his modern incarnation; Childhood and Adolescence, spanning roughly the Agricultural to the Industrial Revolutions; and Maturity, a period just being embarked on now. I take that back. We are still very much in adolescence. Maturity is imminent, but not current.
Even if you don't believe in God, or Christ, or the idea of "peace on earth", science tells us that the future of humanity has a possible span of five billion more years (until the sun becomes a red giant). And we may be so advanced by then that we'll have dispersed our genes throughout the cosmos. Modern man has barely been around 130,000 years, so we either have a lot of time to screw up, or a lot of time to get things right. Is a nuclear Armageddon possible? Yes. Are there more people on earth with a will to live than those who yearn for self-destruction? Yes. Can we pump our atmosphere so full of pollution that life as we know it can no longer thrive? Sure. Can we heed science and turn to low-emission and renewable sources of energy? Definitely. In the end, the pattern of crisis and rebirth needn't end in either crisis or rebirth. Like the best endings, it will probably be some combination of both.
Why are today's crises different from crises in the past? In some ways they aren't. Humans are still killing and hating one another, most of the world continues to subsist in poverty, and we disregard nature as much or more. What's different, though, is the size of the world. Not literally, of course, but politically, psychologically, economically, and even socially. Every person is just seconds or minutes from one another. Technology is no cure-all, but it is binding us so tightly together that our daily realities are more than ever intertwined. In the 1340s, the Black Death decimated Europe. Today, a few victims of a deathly virus in Asia is more than enough to send Americans into protection-mode. That's good, because it means we've actually progressed as a species. From families to tribes to villages and cities, the human race has consistently grown in its ability to embrace a larger group of neighbors. Genetics is teaching us that we're all related and that our genetic differences are insignificant compared to our overarching similarities. At the same time, art, anthropology and sociology are engaged in exposing the vast, variegated tapestry of culture, showcasing diversity while discovering the deeper synchronicity of human roots.
This period of crisis is different, then, because it effects every nation, every human equally if differently. The "selfish gene" is being forced to mutate in order to survive in this wired world. Adulthood is marked by both self-confidence and self-effacement in the knowledge that, yes, you're unique, but there are six billions other unique souls out there. The self-centeredness of youth (hopefully) fades, to be replaced by a more reciprocative rapport. Books, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, internet, cell phones, and GPS ensure that fewer and fewer people today are informationally isolated. And as Americans rally for Darfuris and grapple with the Sunni-Shiite divide, it's clearer than ever that not even the rich and prosperous can escape the pull of the heart-strings of our common tribe.
II. Moments of Grace
Thomas Berry, originally published in Spirituality & Health Magazine, Winter 2000
As we enter the 21st century, we are experiencing a moment of grace. Such moments are privileged moments. The great transformations of the universe occur at such times. The future is defined in some enduring pattern of its functioning. There are cosmological and historical moments of grace as well as religious moments of grace. The present is one of these moments of transformation that can be considered as all three.
Such a moment occurred when the star out of which our solar system was born collapsed in enormous heat, scattering itself as fragments out into the vast realms of space. In the center of this star the elements had been forming through a vast period of time until, in the final heat of this explosion, the more than one hundred elements were present. Only then could the sun, our star, give shape to itself by gathering these fragments together with gravitational power and then leaving some nine spherical shapes sailing in elliptical paths around itself as planetary forms. At this moment Earth, too, could take shape, life could be evoked, intelligence become possible.
This supernova event of a first or second generation star could be considered a cosmological moment of grace, a moment that determined the future possibilities of the solar system, the Earth, and every form of life that would appear on the Earth.
Then for the more-evolved multicellular organic forms of life to appear there had to appear the first living cell; a prokaryotic cell, capable, by the energy of the sun, the carbon of the atmosphere, and the hydrogen of the sea, of a metabolic process never known previously. This original moment of transition from the nonliving to the living world was fostered by the fierce lighting of these early times. At the critical moment in the evolution of the original cell, another cell capable of using the oxygen of the atmosphere with its immense energies appeared. Photosynthesis was completed by respiration.
At this moment the living world as we know it began to flourish until it shaped the Earth anew. Daisies in the meadows, the song of the mockingbird, the graceful movement of dolphins through the sea; all these became possible at this moment. We ourselves became possible. New modes of music and poetry and painting — all these came into being in new forms against the background of the music and poetry and painting of the celestial forms circling through the heavens.
In human history also there have been such moments of grace. Such was the occasion in northeast Africa some 2.5 million years ago when the first humans stood erect and a cascade of consequence was begun that eventuated in our present mode of being. Whatever talent exists in the human order, whatever genius, whatever capability for ecstatic joy, whatever physical strength or skill — all this has come to us through these earlier peoples. It was a determining moment.
There were other moments, too, in the cultural-historical order when the future was determined in some comprehensive and beneficial manner. Such a moment was experienced when humans first were able to control fire; when spoken language was invented; when the first gardens were cultivated; when weaving and shaping and firing of pottery were practiced; when writing and the alphabet were invented. Then there were the moments when the great visionaries were born who gave to the peoples of the world their unique sense of the sacred, when the great revelations occurred. So, too, there were the times when the great storytellers appeared; Homer and Valmiki and others who gave to the world great epic tales. So too, there was the time of the great historians. Ssu-ma Ch'ien in China, Thucydides in Greece, lbn Khaldun in the Arab world.
So now in this transition period into the 21st century, we are experiencing a moment of grace, but a moment in its significance different from any previous moment. For the first time the planet is being disturbed by humans in its geological structure and its biological functioning in a manner like the great cosmic forces that alter the geological and biological structures of the planet, or like the glaciations.
We are also altering the great classical civilizations as well as the indigenous tribal cultures that have dominated the spiritual and intellectual development of vast numbers of people throughout these past 5,000 years. These civilizations and cultures that have governed our sense of the sacred and established our basic norms of reality and value and designed the life disciplines of the peoples of Earth, these civilizations and cultures are terminating a major phase of their historical mission. Their teaching and the energy they communicate are unequal, out of their own resources, to the task of guiding and inspiring the future. We will never be able to function without these traditions. But these older traditions alone cannot fulfill the needs of the moment. That they have been unable to prevent, and have not yet properly critiqued, the present situation is evident. Something new has happened. A new vision and a new energy have come into being.
After some four centuries of empirical observation and experiment we are having a new experience of the deepest mysteries of the universe. We see the universe both as a developmental sequence of irreversible transformations and as an ever-renewing sequence of seasonal cycles. We find ourselves living less as cosmos than as cosmogenesis. In this context we ourselves have become something of a cosmic force. If formerly we lived in a thoroughly understood, ever-renewing sequence of seasonal change, we now see ourselves both as the consequence of a long series of irreversible transformations and as a determining force in the present transformation that the Earth is experiencing. In earlier times any destruction, it was thought, could be renewed as the great cycle of events brought every mode of being back to its beginnings. No permanent damage could be done, since everything was periodically brought back to its primordial integrity. Now we have no such assurance. We now know that the sequence of historical events is irreversible. We also know that moments of creative transformation coexist with terrifying moments of devastation.
As happened at the moment when the amount of free oxygen in the atmosphere threatened to rise beyond its proper proportion and so destroy all living beings, so now awesome forces are let loose over the Earth. This time, however, the cause is from an industrial economy that is disturbing the geological structure and life systems of the planet in a manner and to an extent that the Earth has never known previously. Many of the most elaborate expressions of life and grandeur and beauty that the planet has ever known are now threatened in their survival. All of this is by human activity.
So severe and so irreversible is this deterioration that we might well believe those who tell us that we have only a brief period in which to reverse the devastation that is settling over the Earth, only recently has the deep pathos of the Earths situation begun to sink into our consciousness. While we might exult in our scientific and technological achievements in our journey to the moon we must also experience some foreboding lest, through our industrial uses of these same scientific and technological processes, we reduce the wonder and beauty as well as the nourishing capacities of the Earth. We might lose the finest experiences that come to us through all those wondrous forms of life expression as well as the sources of the food and clothing and shelter that we depend on for our survival.
It is tragic to see all those entrancing forms of life expressions imperiled. Yet as so often in the past the catastrophic moments are also creative moments. We come to appreciate the gifts that the Earth has given us.
Such is the context in which we must view this transition period as a moment of grace. A unique opportunity arises. For if the challenge is so absolute, the possibilities are equally comprehensive. We have identified the difficulties but also the opportunities of what is before us. A comprehensive change of consciousness is coming over the human community, especially in the industrial nations of the world. For the first time since the industrial age began we have a profound critique of its devastation, a certain withdrawal in dismay at what is happening, along with an enticing view of the possibilities before us.
Much of this is new. Yet all during the last few decades of the 20th century studies were made that give us precise information on what we must do. A list of persons, projects, institutions, research programs, and publications could be drawn up indicating that something vital is happening. A younger generation is growing up with greater awareness of the need for a mutually enhancing mode of human presence on the Earth. We have even been told that concern for the environment must become "the central organizing principal of civilization" (Al Gore, Earth in the Balance).
Scientists are now telling the story of the universe as the epic story of evolution. We begin to understand our human identity with all the other modes of existence that constitute with us the single universe community. The one story includes us all. We are, everyone, cousins to one another. Every being is intimately present to, and immediately influencing, every other being.
We see quite clearly that what happens to the nonhuman happens to the human. What happens to the outer world happens to the inner world. If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur then the emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and spiritual life of the human is diminished or extinguished. Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sound and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of the clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human.
There is now developing a profound mystique of the natural world. Beyond the technical comprehension of what is happening and the directions in which we need to change, we now experience the deep mysteries of existence through the wonders of the world about us. This experience has been considerably advanced through the writings of the natural-history essayists. Our full entrancement with various natural phenomena is presented with the literary skill and interpretative depth appropriate to the subject. We experience this especially in the writings of Loren Eiseley, who recovered for us in this century the full wonder of the natural world about us. He has continued the vision of the universe as was presented to us in the 19th century by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and John Muir.
We are now experiencing a moment of significance far beyond what any of us can imagine. What can be said is that the foundations of a new historical period, the Ecozoic Era, have been established in every realm of human affairs. The mythic vision has been set into place. The distorted dream of an industrial technological paradise is being replaced by the more viable dream of a mutually enhancing human presence within an ever-renewing organic-based Earth community. The dream drives the action. In the larger cultural context the dream becomes the myth which both guides and drives the action.
But even as we make our transition into this new century we must note that moments of grace are transient moments. The transformation must take place within a brief period. Otherwise it is gone forever. That, in the immense story of the universe, so many of these dangerous moments have been navigated successfully, is some indication that the universe is for us rather than against us. We need only summon these forces to our support in order to succeed. It is difficult to believe that the purposes of the universe or of the planet Earth will ultimately be thwarted — although the human challenge to these purposes must never be underestimated.
Interview: Thomas Homer-Dixon - Can We Get Ourselves Out of the Mess We've Made?III. Catagenesis
Ehsan Masood, originally published in New Scientist Magazine, 25 November 2006
Day after day, we are bombarded by news of environmental collapse, wars over energy, population crises in poor countries, and dysfunctional communities in rich ones. In short, doom and gloom - coming to a town near you. But that's not good enough, says Thomas Homer-Dixon. Surely we can we lessen the severity of impending disasters. What happened to human ingenuity? And are there things we can learn from our collective knowledge? Homer-Dixon is a long-time observer of global trends, and among the first to identify social breakdown as a possible consequence of unchecked environmental degradation. Governments everywhere, from his native Canada to the UK, pay attention to him because the kites he flies are less prone to crashing than most. So his latest book, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, creativity and the renewal of civilization, is likely to be read by policy wonks and worried individuals alike. It's a wake-up call for millions feeling overwhelmed by an unrelieved diet of disaster. As he told Ehsan Masood, the point is both to understand our interconnected world - and to change it.
What kind of breakdown forces are we facing?
We are in a time of fundamental crisis. I see five "stress" factors as likely to have the biggest impact on future disasters. Energy stress, especially from oil scarcity. Economic stress from global instability and gaps in the incomes of rich and poor. Population stress from differentials in growth rates between rich and poor, and from megacities in poor societies. Stress from worsening damage to land, water, forests and fisheries. And climate stress from changes in Earth's atmosphere.
Are there solutions?
We need radical thinking. One idea is what I would call open-source democracy, where you get a lot of people together using the online world to think collectively about how to solve our common problems.
What would be the role of the expert, scientific or otherwise, in this brave new collaborative world?
In the Wiki world, everyone has access to the same knowledge. Many people no longer feel that experts have additional authority. If knowledge is power, then today everyone has enormous power. What we need to do is get all of the people to take responsibility for the knowledge that we all possess. So, for example, in climate change, you don't have an expert come in and say do this or do that. Instead, you encourage lay people to learn about the details of energy or the atmosphere, so the quality of the bigger conversation is improving all the time. I'm not saying experts don't have a role: they will be part of the conversation, but they should not dominate.
Your book seems to cover similar ground to a number of recent books, such as Jared Diamond's Collapse and Martin Rees's Our Final Century.
There is an important difference. Their stories end with breakdown, suggesting that if we have breakdown, it's "game over". I think that if certain kinds of breakdown happen, that's when things get really interesting. Between the alternatives of a prosperous business-as-usual future and catastrophic social collapse is a continuum of possible futures. Some of these might be very grim, but others might generate opportunities for positive change if we are smart enough to exploit them.
I especially like the Rees book because he brings gravitas to grave problems facing humanity. Collapse is admirable but is wanting in a lot of ways: for example, it uses a lot of historical references which have somewhat dubious relevance today. Our western civilisation is exceptional in as much as we have democracy, markets and science, and Diamond doesn't effectively show why these things won't stave off catastrophe.
Are there examples of when catastrophe leads to renewal?
I call this phenomenon catagenesis - rebirth through breakdown. In the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake there was a financial crisis in both the US and the UK. This led to the creation of the Federal Reserve System. This one event reformed American capitalism and created one of the most important institutions of the modern world.
Could we experiment so we get in some practice under less drastic conditions?
Yes, I think we should use small-scale experiments to see which technologies, organisations and procedures work best under different breakdown scenarios. How, for instance, will we move around, feed ourselves and generate energy if our conventional ways of doing these things have been disrupted? And how are we going to keep extremists from manipulating people who are suddenly scared and angry? I don't have complete answers but we should be out there looking now.
Isn't there another problem, in that solutions may run counter to our economic model, which relies on perpetual growth?
Yes. In rich countries we need to figure out if there are feasible alternatives to our hidebound commitment to economic growth, because it's increasingly clear that endless material growth is incompatible with the long-term viability of Earth's environment. We need to know what a "steady state" economy - one with a roughly constant output of goods and services - might look like. What economic and ethical values might it have? Could it include some (albeit radically transformed) version of market capitalism? Would it be compatible with personal and social liberty? How would the political and social conflicts that would inevitably arise if there were no growth be resolved? Breakdown will discredit this economic rationalisation and create intellectual spaces for new ideas. But this space will be brutally competitive and might throw up rather cruel scenarios. We can boost the chances that humane alternatives will thrive by working them out now and disseminating them as widely as possible.
Could the process that spawned Wikipedia and open-source projects even help produce these humane alternatives?
Yes, I think so. What's interesting about Wikipedia is that if someone had said 15 years ago that you could have a volunteeristic process, gathering knowledge to produce an encyclopedia which is almost as good as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, people would have laughed. I know there are teething troubles but the Wikipedia people are working on them. The details of the structure of open-source architecture will determine these projects' success.
Are you actively involved in open-source projects?
I want to concentrate on how to use them to address the very toughest problems, such as energy and climate change. One example is already on my website. Before Paul Martin became prime minister of Canada, we talked about how to solve complex problems, such as public healthcare. His first reaction was to get 20 world experts around a table in a closed room. I said they might come out with good suggestions, but no one would buy into them because they'd be from 20 experts in a room. The world has changed: we have diffusion of power to the general public so we all need to take responsibility along with that power.
Did the PM get it in the end?
He was very receptive.
Your book shows recent civilisations disappearing much faster than older ones. Does this worry you?
Sure. When collapse starts it happens much faster now because everything is very tightly coupled. The evidence seems to be that as history progresses, societal collapses take place much more quickly.
If we don't seize opportunities when they present themselves, what is the worst that could happen?
Because systems are all much more connected now, failures in one set of systems eventually affect all the others: in a sense, we are one system now. In Canada, for example, we had a huge cod fishery which was considered to be the most productive on Earth. Then it collapsed, most likely because of overfishing. The ecological system had been pushed to a new equilibrium. There is no reason in principle why this wouldn't happen on a global scale. We just don't know what kind of game we're playing, and we may well push our global system beyond its limits and to a new equilibrium - one not suited to human prosperity.
But humans are often at their best, and achieve their greatest accomplishments, in moments of crisis and rapid change, and I hope against hope that the same will be true in coming decades.
Excerpt: Hindu Deities
As found at the Kashmiri Overseas Association
Hindus view cosmic activity of the Supreme Being as comprised of three tasks: creation, preservation, and dissolution and recreation. Hindus associate these three cosmic tasks with the three deities, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Lord Brahma brings forth the creation and represents the creative principle of the Supreme Being. Lord Vishnu maintains the universe and represents the eternal principle of preservation. Lord Shiva represents the principle of dissolution and recreation. These three deities together form the Hindu Trinity.
One must clearly understand that Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are not three independent deities. They represent the same power (the Supreme Being), but in three different aspects. Just as a man may be called a doctor, father or husband based upon the tasks he performs, the Supreme Being is called Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva when conceived as performing the three different cosmic tasks of creation, preservation, and dissolution/recreation. "The oneness of the three gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva is brought out by the mystic symbol AUM where 'A' represents Vishnu, 'U' Shiva and 'M' Brahma."
Excerpt: The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell
The cosmogonic cycle pulses forth into manifestation and back into nonmanifestation amidst a silence of the unknown. The Hindus represent this mystery in the holy syllable AUM. Here the sound A represents waking consciousness, U dream consciousness, M deep sleep. The silence surrounding the syllable is the unknown: it is called simply “The Fourth.” The syllable itself is God as creator-preserver-destroyer, but the silence is God Eternal, absolutely uninvolved in all the opening-and-closings of the round.
Karen Armstrong
Note: As this is an excerpt from a much longer book, a few terms and names should be defined for full understanding.
- Ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240) was an Islamic mystic and philosopher.
- Ismailis are members of the second largest branch of Shi'a Islam; they accept Ismail bin Jafar as their Imam, whereas the Twelvers, the largest branch of Shi'a Islam, accept Musa al-Kazim, younger brother of Ismail.
- Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam.
- Kabbalism refers to the mystical tradition of Judaism.
- Sefiroth or "enumerations" are the ten attributes of God, as defined by Kabbalism.
- En Sof or "without end" is the hidden aspect of God, the material basis of Creation that, when focused, restricted, and filtered through the sefiroth, results in the created, dynamic universe.
Ibn al-Arabi was also convinced that the imagination was a God-given faculty. When a mysteric created an epiphany for himself, he was bringing to birth here below a reality that existed more perfectly in the realm of archetypes. When we saw the divine in other people, we were making an imaginative effort to uncover the true reality: "God made the creatures like veils," he explained, "He who knows them as such is led back to Him, but he who takes them as real is barred from His presence."
. . . .
Like the Ismailis, Ibn al-Arabi stressed the pathos of God, which was in sharp conrast to the apatheia of the God of the philosophers. The God of the mysterics yearned to be known by his creatures. The Ismailis believed that the noun ilah (god) sprang from the Arabic root WLH: to be sad, to sigh for. As the Sacred Hadith had made God say: "I was a hidden treasure and I yearned to be known. Then I created creatures in order to be known by them." There is no rational proof of God's sadness; we know it only by our own longing for something to fulfill our deepest desires and to explain the tragedy and pain of life. Since we are created in God's image, we must reflect God, the supreme archetype. Our yearning for the reality that we call "God" must, therefore, mirror a sympathy with the pathos of God. Ibn al-Arabi imagined the solitary God sighing with longing, but this sign (nafas rahmani) was not an expression of maudlin self-pity. It had an active, creative force which brought the whole of our cosmos into existence; it also exhaled human beings, who became logoi, words that express God to himself. It follows that each human being is a unique epiphany of the Hidden God, manifesting him in a particular and unrepeatable manner....
Ibn al-Arabi also liked to call God al-Ama, "the Cloud" or "The Blindness" to emphasize his inaccessibility. But these human logoi also reveal the Hidden God to himself. It is a two-way process: God sighs to become known and is delivered from his solitude by the people in whom he reveals himself. The sorrow of the Unknown God is assuaged by the Revealed God in each human being who makes him known to himself; it is also true that the Revealed God in every individual yearns to return to its source with a divine nostalgia that inspires our own longing....
Divinity and humanity were thus two aspects of the divine life that animates the entire cosmos.....
[Isaac Luria, the hero and saint of the Kabbalism of Safed] confronted the question that had troubled monotheists for centuries: how could a perfect and infinite God have created a finite world riddled with evil? Where had evil come from? Luria found his answer by imagining what had happend before the emanation of the sefiroth, when En Sof had been turned in upon itself in sublime introspection. In order to make room for the world, Luria taught, En Sof had, as it were, vacated a region within himself. In this act of "shrinking" or "withdrawal" (tsimtsum), God had thus created a place where he was not, an exmpty space that he could fill by the simultaneous process of self-revelation and creation. It was a daring attempt to illustrate the difficult doctrine of creation out of nothing: the very first act of En Sof was a self-imposed exile from a part of himself. He had, as it were, descended more deeply into his own being and put a limit upon himself. It is an idea that is not dissimilar to the primordial kenosis that Christians have imagined in the Trinity, whereby God emptied himself into his Son in an act of self-expression. For sixteenth-century Kabbalists, tsimtsum was primarily a symbol of exil, which underlay the structure of all created existence and had been experienced by En Sof himself.
Ervin Laszlo is a renaissance man for the world of the future. If that's a bit of a mind-bender, then consider this: Laszlo started his career as a pianist; became the leading proponent of systems theory as a broad philosophical framework; went beyond Darwin to elaborate general evolutionary theory; theorized the “fifth physical field” to prove an absolute dimension beyond time and space; taught in universities across America, Europe, and Asia; and now advocates for global sustainability. What led him from the concert stage to the laboratory, around the world, and across the disciplines? Interest, pure interest. “I'm interested in problems, in puzzles, in what in science are called 'anomalies,' ” he says matter-of-factly. “I'm really interested in things that I don't understand.” And thanks to the incredible reach of his interest, we are all waking up to see the entire cosmos in a new light—as one living system of which we are an integral part.
Born in Hungary between the two world wars, Laszlo was a child prodigy—a brilliant pianist who let his mind soar as his hands flew over the keys. After he would finish playing, he'd rush to his typewriter to capture the insights and questions that had come to him. Eventually realizing that “you can't be a professional concert pianist and have your mind work on philosophical scientific problems,” Laszlo gave up music to pursue science. And pursue he did: he has been chasing science out of the laboratory and snug academic circles ever since, bringing the latest discoveries to bear on the fundamental questions of human life. About a decade ago, Laszlo founded the prestigious Club of Budapest, gathering together leading minds in art, science, religion, and culture in order to evolve a new ethic for a sustainable world.
After a recent lecture at Yale University, WIE had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Laszlo about his vision for a paradigm shift that could change the future.
WIE: You have written that we are in a “macroshift”—where the economic and ecological systems on this planet will undergo a crisis, a total transformation leading to utter breakdown or extraordinary breakthrough. What do you see happening? And how soon do you believe it will happen?
Ervin Lazslo: That's what we don't know. Obviously, you can't keep having more and more people use more and more resources, and have greater and greater inequality in the distribution of those resources, without a breaking point being reached. Right now, for example, with the melting of the ice cap deflecting the Gulf Stream, it's entirely possible that in three years England will have the frigid climate of Labrador, which is at the same latitude. Spring and summer just won't come. The fact of the matter is that we live on a planet where everything is circular—whatever you do to other people or to nature eventually comes back to you. While it has always been like this, we weren't even capable of thinking this way until a couple hundred years ago.
An additional factor has to do with the behavior of complex systems: they don't change smoothly. It's impossible to tell, even theoretically, when a complex system is reaching its limit—there are so many feedbacks, so many self-correcting mechanisms that are operating. But when there is more and more stress, sooner or later you reach a tipping or bifurcation point, and all of a sudden the system just can't correct for it. We have been ignoring the pressure building in the system. As a result, we are facing an “ecol-nomic” crisis—ecological and economic simultaneously—with potentially catastrophic problems like climate change and sea level increase that may threaten our survival.
WIE: These are problems of a magnitude and complexity that humanity has never faced before. It's intriguing that as a scientist, you're not looking toward technological solutions but, instead, toward a fundamental change in our thinking. What is this new thinking, and how can it help us?
Laszlo: It's about a new worldview with new values adapted to living, surviving, and developing on this planet. The rise of spirituality and the rise of meditation techniques and involvement with inner growth are all part of this phenomenon. And it's already occurring, but it has to be accelerated.
Now, you can get to this new worldview by rational or intellectual means. You can get to it intuitively, through art, spirituality, or religion. And you can get there through science. If you look at developments in science, you'll find that science is increasingly recognizing that everything is connected very strongly with everything else. Everything that exists is an open system. Nothing is entirely closed or independent—everything is very sensitively connected.
The implications are enormous wherever you look. So, for example, we are not just a block of cells, like a building is a block of bricks. Most fundamentally, our living tissue is not made out of hard-core elements—atoms and molecules—it is made of waves. Thus, we are living systems that are continuously receiving and transmitting information. This information transmission is faster than any conceivable biochemical mechanism, because what happens in one part of the organism simultaneously happens to the other part. It's constantly interactive on multiple dimensions. It's a remarkable thing—going way beyond any technical, biological, mechanistic, and materialistic concept of the organism.
As so much of the spiritual literature says: we are not limited to five slits in the tower—meaning that we don't just see the world through the five sense organs. To me, it's very obvious that consciousness is not a byproduct of the brain, produced by a complex set of neurons. It's something that's pervading the whole universe. It's there in the whole body, in all living systems, probably all the way down to the quantum level. We are living in a universe that itself is conscious. And so, we can open the roof to the sky. In creativity you open up—you have a possibility to open the roof to the sky. Then you're no longer alone. I had these moments as a young musician in concert—a sensation of being part of a larger universe. You have united with something larger than yourself.
I believe that these things will give us a new paradigm of a universe that is connected. We are far more interconnected to one another and to all elements than we ever thought. A friend who I admired very much, Jonas Salk, said that a new paradigm in science and in society is like a response of the immune system, because it enables you to think in ways that are more adapted to coping with new problems. So, if this paradigm would begin to penetrate into society, we would have more solidarity, more humanity, and a better relationship to nature and to each other, because we would recognize what William James said in The Varieties of Religious Experience—that we are separate on the surface but connected in the deep. Or what Buddhists know—that we are connected to the cosmos. It's also what I think Jesus meant when he said, “You have to love each other, as I love you, because you are all part of the same.” All of the great prophets have said this. But we've lost this interconnectedness in our fascination with technology, the economy, and power itself. Recognizing the subtle element connecting all of nature and its effect on our mind, our consciousness, could go a long way toward making us more human—and by the way, help us to survive the crisis that we are now facing.
Adib Taherdadeh
We are indeed living in an age which, if we would correctly appraise it, should be regarded as one which is witnessing a dual phenomenon. The first signalizes the death-pangs of an order, effete and godless....The second proclaims the birth-pangs of an Order, divine and redemptive, that will inevitably supplant the former, and within whose administrative structure an embryonic civilization, incomparable and world-embracing, is imperceptibly maturing. The one is being rolled up, and is crashing in oppression, bloodshed, and ruin. The other opens up vistas of a justice, a unity, a peace, a culture, such as no age has ever seen. The former has spent its force, demonstrated its falsity and barrenness, lost irretrievably its opportunity, and is hurrying to its doom. The latter, virile and unconquerable, is plucking asunder its chains, and is vindicating its title to be the one refuge within which a sore-tried humanity, purged from its dross, can attain its destiny.
When winter comes the trees are leafless, the fields and meadows withered, the flowers die away into the dust-heaps; in prairie, mountain and garden no freshness lingers, no beauty is visible, no verdure can be seen. Everything is clad in the robe of death. Wherever you look around you will find the expression of death and decay. But when the spring comes, and the showers descend, and the sun floods the meadows and plains with light, you will observe creation clad in a new robe of expression. The showers have made the meadows green and verdant. The warm breezes have caused the trees to put on their garments of leaves. They have blossomed and soon will produce new, fresh and delightful fruits. Everything appears endowed with a newness of life; a new animus and spirit is everywhere visible. The spring has resuscitated all phenomena and has adorned the earth with beauty as it willeth.
Even so is the Spiritual Springtime when it comes. When the Holy, Divine Manifestations or Prophets appear in the world, a cycle of radiance, an age of mercy dawns. Everything is renewed. Minds, hearts and all human forces are re-formed, perfections are quickened, sciences, discoveries and investigations are stimulated afresh and everything appertaining to the virtues of the human world is re-vitalized. Consider this present century of radiance and compare it with past centuries. What a vast difference exists between them! How minds have developed! How perception have deepened! How discoveries have increased! What great projects have been accomplished! How many realities have become manifest! How many mysteries of creation have been probed and penetrated! What is the cause of this? It is through the efficacy of the Spiritual Springtime in which we are living. Day by day the world attains a new bounty. In this radiant century neither the old customs nor the old sciences, crafts, laws and regulations have remained. The old political principles are undergoing change and a new body politic is in process of formation. Nevertheless some whose thoughts are congealed and whose souls are bereft of the light of the Sun of Reality seek to arrest this development in the world of the minds of men. Is this possible?
In the unmistakable and universal re-formation we are witnessing when outer conditions of humanity are receiving such impetus, when human life is assuming a new aspect, when sciences are stimulated afresh, inventions and discoveries increasing, civic laws undergoing change and moralities evidencing uplift and betterment, is it possible that spiritual impulses and influences should not be renewed and reformed? Naturally new spiritual thoughts and inclinations must also become manifest. If spirituality be not renewed, what fruits come from mere physical reformation? For instance, the body of man may improve, the quality of bone and sinew may advance, the hand may develop, other limbs and members may increase in excellence, but if the mind fails to develop of what use is the rest? The important factor in human improvement is the mind. In the world of the mind there must needs be development and improvement. There must be reformation in the kingdom of the human spirit, otherwise no result will be attained from betterment of the mere physical structure.
In this new year new fruits must be forthcoming, for that is the provision and intention of spiritual reformation. The renewal of the leaf is fruitless. From the reformation of bark or branch no fruit will come forth. The renewal of verdure produces nothing. If there be no renewal of fruit from the tree, of what avail is the reformation of bark, blossom, branch and trunk? For a fruitless tree is of no special value. Similarly, of what avail is the reformation of physical condition sunless they are concomitant with spiritual reformations? For the essential reality is the spirit; the foundational basis is the spirit; the life of man is due to the spirit; the happiness, the animus, the radiance, the glory of man -- all are due to the spirit; and if in the spirit no reformation takes place, there will be no result to human existence.
Therefore we must strive, with life and heart, that the material and physical world may be reformed, human perception become keener, the merciful Effulgence manifest and the radiance of Reality shine. Then the Star of Love shall appear and the world of humanity become illumined. The purpose is that the world of existence is dependent for its progress upon reformation; otherwise it will be as dead. Consider, if a new springtime failed to appear, what would be the effect upon this globe, the earth? Undoubtedly it would become dissolute and life extinct. The earth has need of an annual coming of spring. It is necessary that a new bounty should be forthcoming. If it comes not, life would be effaced. In the same way, the world of spirit needs new life, the world of mind necessitates new animus and development, 371 the world of souls a new bounty, the world of morality a reformation, the world of divine effulgence ever new bestowals. Were it not for this replenishment, the life of the world would become effaced and extinguished. If this room is not ventilated and the air freshened, respiration will cease after a length of time. If no rain falls all life-organisms will perish. If new light does not come, the darkness of death will envelop the earth. If a new springtime does not arrive, life upon this globe will be obliterated.
Therefore, thoughts must be lofty and ideals uplifted in order that the world of humanity may become assisted in new conditions of reform. When this reformation affects every degree, then will come the very "Day of the Lord" of which all the Prophets have spoken. That is the day wherein the whole world will be regenerated. Consider: are the laws of past ages applicable to present human conditions? Evidently they are not. For example, the laws of former centuries sanctioned despotic forms of government. Are the laws of despotic control fitted for present day conditions? How could they be applied to solve the questions surrounding modern nations? Similarly, we ask, would the status of ancient thought, the crudeness of arts and crafts, the insufficiency of scientific attainment, serve us today? Would the agricultural methods of the ancients suffice in the twentieth century? Transportation in the former ages was restricted to conveyance by animals. How would it provide for human needs today? If modes of transportation had not been reformed the teeming millions now upon the earth would die of starvation. Without the railway and fast-going steamship, the world of the present day would be as dead. How could great cities, such as New York and London, subsist if dependent upon ancient means of conveyance? It is also true of other things which have been reformed in proportion to the needs of the present time. Had they not bee reformed, man could not find subsistence.
If these material tendencies are in such need of reformation, how much greater the need of the world of the human spirit, the world of human thought, perception, virtues and bounties! Is it possible that need has remained stationary while the world has been advancing in every other condition and direction? It is impossible!