WorldShift Now!

Worldshift International (an organization I co-founded) has now launched its very own social network - WS NOW! - where we hope to bring like-minded people together: to share ideas, blog postings, videos, discussions - and the 'Substance of We Feeling'. So please come and join us at - www.worldshift-now.org - and help us to develop together.

WS Now! - A Conscious Evolution Initiative

 

www.worldshift-now.org

 

Co-creating a new paradigm in which social, cultural, political, and conscious evolution form the foundations of a harmonious global society

WorldShift International

A Global Conscious Evolution Initiative
It has been said that our generation is the first in history that can decide
whether it’s the last in history. We need to add that our generation is also the
first in history that can decide whether it will be the first generation of a new
phase in history. We have reached a watershed in our social and cultural
evolution.
Dr. Ervin Laszlo

WorldShift International (WSI) is an autonomous worldshift initiative that seeks to promote, support, and engage with the concept of a world shift within our current global systems, as well as an inner-world shift at a personal level, and an evolutionary shift in human consciousness.

The WorldShift International website is a portal to information that supports and encourages both an inner-world, and external world shift, and aims to provide resources that will help to empower individuals in their own process, as well as an awareness for the urgent need for global change. WorldShift International also hosts the ‘WorldShift Now!’ social network, inviting individuals to create, develop and share their own networks of WorldShift aligned interests and activities with like-minded people.

WSI offers a platform upon which it invites collaboration with like-minded individuals, groups, and organizations for cultural, political, social, environmental, ecological and economical reform, and for the establishment of a healthy, functional and progressive global society.

WSI views as imperative the need for us all to recognize the urgent necessity for global change. Not only change in our external systems, behaviour, and practices, but also change in our very way of thinking. A new consciousness is now required if we are to successfully manage our shift forward into the 21st century. It is imperative that we seek the means to transcend the current system and to establish and nurture ways that allow us to live in creative harmony and balance with ourselves, with others, and with nature. As Buckminster Fuller said – ‘You never change anything by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete’.

WSI is committed to supporting and co-creating a positive, evolutionary change; and acknowledges the fundamental strength, dignity, resilience, and spirit of each individual and the inherent capacity we all have to make this shift.

WorldShift International: A conscious evolution initiative seeking to ensure that our generation is not the last generation, but the first generation co-creating a new paradigm in which social, cultural, political, and conscious evolution form the foundations of a harmonious global society.

Coming Together: Time to ‘Occupy Our We’ Feeling

It is now openly apparent, and can no longer be denied or covered over, that many of the material structures in our social world have become a transparent fiction: our financial systems, our job securities, pensions, etc. It is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that these structures will continue to provide for our needs. As our rafts search for land, our paddles are being taken away from us. This has happened time and again. That is why it is important now that we realize the responsibility to reach the shore is in our own hands. And when we eventually find fertile land it will be from our own efforts — and the cultivation that much more rewarding. As personal circumstances become more affected by the changes occurring in the world it will become necessary that people “wake-up” to new responsibilities and decisions. This is what we have been seeing throughout 2011, first with the Arab Spring social revolutions, and now with the Occupy movements. Many people now realize and accept that the upcoming years will be different from what has gone before.
As these physical changes begin to impact and encroach upon each person’s well-being, voices will be rising from within the self and calling for a new way forward. Action should not be an act alone; it needs to be accompanied by an equal, if not greater, act of inner awareness. Each pathway of experience is unique to every person for there are as many ways to the inner self/knowing as there are people’s hearts. Nor is the true spirit one of contemplation alone, for the spiritual ideal of our era now is one of considerate and compassionate action. And through this action, change will come. How difficult or easy these changes will be depends much upon the response of each person. What is important is not only the event itself but also how each person deals with it. The challenges we face may be out of our hands, yet each of us has the power to choose how we respond to them.

Willaru Huayta, a spiritual messenger in the Inca tradition, has been traveling the globe telling people that: “The world is at a critical point of transition, which is highlighted by the crisis in spiritual and moral principles. Nationality is no longer important… Human truth is one. The most important thing now is to awaken the consciousness in a positive form.” The upcoming changes, to some degree, are unstoppable, yet they function to “sweep the house clean” rather than to reinforce any negativity. This is important to remember so that we do not mistakenly feel over-powered by the disruptions coming with the change. Such disturbances, however distasteful, are necessary — just as the odour of bleach is distasteful and potentially harmful, yet its function is to clean and purify. As the world struggles to accommodate the necessary changes there will be countless ripples spreading out into the personal lives of many people. Whilst for some people meditation may prove a means of practising inner balance and focusing intentions, for others there may well be a need for disciplined action.

Part of this can be fulfilled by shifting our behaviour patterns away from a self-centered and material consumerist lifestyle to a more community-centered set of values. As Nobel prize winning author Doris Lessing wrote in her book “Shikasta,” the “broken” Earth needs to regain the energies of SOWF (“Substance Of We Feeling”). The keys to growth and renewal have been planted within each person. Much will be expected from people in the coming years as they face increased fears and challenges; challenges for which history holds few guidelines for the immediate future. Such challenges, whilst resonating within the heart of each person, must surely be in harmony also with our social contexts and responsibilities. The spirit does not live in isolation, but walks with us in life. As the Native American elder “grandfather” says (in a series of books by Tom Brown, Jr.): “Trying to live a spiritual life in modern society is the most difficult path one can walk. It is a path of pain, of isolation and of shaken faith, but that is the only way that our vision can become reality.”

The human species is, after all, a social species (as anthropologists keenly like to remind us). It is easy to behave “spiritually” when one is confined to the hermit’s cave — then our only struggles are with our ceaseless thoughts. However, sincere spiritual activity also requires that each individual understands and accepts the role of their social participation, of their presence and responsibility with friends, family and within the community. It may well be that as times become harder for many people the emphasis will shift toward the need for more integral communities. Social development needs to come through “right action” — with the knowledge and understanding that growth can be achieved more harmoniously when worked at through right intentions and actions.

A “Substance Of We Feeling” is needed like wine grapes need a good soil. As a global community of individuals we are being pushed toward developing and supporting a creative and shared developmental consciousness. Through a combination of physical changes on the social, cultural and political levels, people worldwide will begin to awaken to the audacity of our situation. From this there may be further “awakenings” as the ironic, incredulous and absurd factors of many of our lifestyles are brazenly shown in the shocking light they deserve.

However, there is great need to “work.” We have a responsibility to work toward revitalizing our connection with our “selves” as well as our communities — to regenerate our relationship with the world we live in. This is not a time to fear for loss, but rather a time to aspire to new possibilities. A renewal and regeneration brings in new air, new potentialities and new gains. There is no clinging to the old when there is much vigorous work to be done. Any spiritual endeavour cannot — or should not — be separated from the physical. The human is a physical creature that is nourished from a physical world. Whilst we sojourn on this planet, and whilst our home remains physical, we have a responsibility to manifest our spirit within the physical domain. This is what is required of us, and deep within we all inherently know this. We are here to work together — time to occupy our “we” feeling. Or, as Doris Lessing would say: our “Substance of We Feeling.”

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THE WORLDSHIFT 20 DECLARATION

The new declaration from the WorldShift Council has now been issued, as a response to the recent G20 Meeting in November. Here you can find some extracts as well as a link to the pdf of the Declaration – please distribute and share.

The WorldShift 20 Council offers its alternative to the G20 Declaration in order to call attention to shortcomings in the philosophy of the G20 and introduce a more appropriate holistic and humanistic perspective.
1. Elements of the global crisis
1.1 Financial instability
The current global monetary and financial system is innately dysfunctional on an unprecedented scale; it is approaching a breakdown. Although the on-going crisis is the biggest since the 1930s, it certainly is not the first and without fundamental reform and re-setting it will not be the last. The IMF has identified 145 banking crises, 208 monetary crashes and 72 sovereign debt crises between 1970 and 2010, crises that have repeatedly affected three-quarters of the 187 IMF member countries. These crises feedback to exacerbate each other. A banking crisis can lead to sovereign debt problem (e.g. Ireland), a sovereign debt problem to a monetary crisis (e.g. Greece); and a monetary crisis to a banking problem. Increasing globalization of markets have also become progressively destabilized and dangerously volatile by the lack of effective regulation, over leveraged financing, exponential increases in speculation and hyper-speed transactions.
Until now, governments have kept borrowing from the financial system to bail out banks. They have been tinkering at the margins with regulations, but without any meaningful reform or touching the monetary structure itself. How many crises do we need to experience, or indeed are able to withstand, before systemic problems are addressed with systemic solutions?
1.2 Climate change
Unless decisive measures are taken, the climate changes produced by global warming will come together with such profound synergies that no human power will be sufficient to retain them. They will inexorably synergize in spontaneous interactions and disastrous effect. By the end of the 21st Century, a considerable percentage of the human species may perish due to climate-induced catastrophes, epidemics of diseases sweeping into new terrains, and human conflict and war resulting from the most massive migration of peoples in human history, with hundreds of millions, even billions of climatic refugees moving across the continents. These scientific predictions merit the most sober consideration and urgent large-scale actions.
The year 2011 has seen the most significant melting of the Polar region ice caps since the “perfect storm” of atmospheric and ocean conditions in the year 2007. Ice extent for September 2011 was the second lowest in the satellite record for the month. The last five years (2007 to 2011) have had the five lowest September extents in the satellite record. The linear rate of decline is now -84,700 square kilometres (-32,700 square miles) per year, or -12% per decade relative to the 1979 to 2000 average.
1.3 Nuclear weapons
The abolition of nuclear weapons, in turn, is no longer merely a lofty goal and noble aspiration: it is essential for human survival. Peace is impossible as long as the threat of nuclear war hangs over our heads. A Nuclear Weapons Convention prohibiting the production as well as the use of all nuclear weapons in all circumstances is urgently needed. In a democratic world, such a Convention must be constructed by awakening the public to the threat of maintaining vast arsenals of weapons that could destroy all life on Earth. Such an awakening is already in progress.
In 21 countries, including the five major nuclear powers, polls show that 76 percent of people support negotiation of a treaty banning all nuclear weapons. But powerful military-industrial complexes are trading on the fear that has been purposively foisted on the public. An impartial debate on the subject is almost impossible, and in consequence it is difficult to bring about the consensus needed to initiate democratic measures that could eliminate the nuclear ‘Sword of Damocles’ hanging over our heads.
1.4 Population growth
In the year 1911, the world population was approximately 1.8 billion. In 2011 it has reached 7 billion an increase of almost 400% in just 100 years. The United Nations predicted that World Population could reach 10 billion by 2100, even if the birthrate in all countries slows over time to a replacement level. More than 95 per cent of the future population increase will come from less developed countries (defined as all countries except the U.S.A., Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand) where the populations are overwhelmingly young.
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THE BOTTOM LINE
Argentina yesterday, Greece today—Italy and Spain tomorrow, Serbia, Poland and Hungary the day after? Sub-prime crisis yesterday, banking crisis today, major-power default tomorrow? The economic, financial and political systems that dominate the world are fundamentally flawed. Global economic and financial instability is an indication of a structural malady. Band-aid solutions applied to the symptoms of this malady are not enough. The malady itself needs to be addressed.
THE WS20 RECOMMENDATION
The G20 leaders need to appoint an independent body to examine the structural causes of instability in the world and recommend effective approaches to cope with it. This body is not to represent the governments of the G20 and is not to report uniquely to the governments. It is to be composed of ethical individuals who serve in their own capacity and represent the basic human interest: the interest of every woman, man and child on the planet. They are to report directly to the people, enlisting the cooperation of the world’s foresighted and ethical media.
In a democracy it is the people who lead, and in a global democracy it is all the world’s people who must lead. The world’s people have woken up: they are ready. They are divesting themselves of dictatorships and hierarchies, they are raising their voice and forming networks and alliances through throughout the globe. They know that the world is reaching a watershed, and that the year 2012 will be decisive to deconstruct the old and launch the new.
The malady is real, but the cure exists, individuals who have the integrity and the wisdom to identify the cure exist, and the people are ready to respond and take the lead. The leaders of the G20 could be the catalyst of an urgently needed worldshift. This would be in the leaders’ own interest. A tidal wave of change is coming, and leaders either enable the people to ride its crest or will be swept aside.

To read more, please visit the WorldShift International website

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Why We Are in Need of a Positive Worldshift

It is now apparent to even casual observers that our world is reaching a critical stage. Most of what we see in the daily news reports informs us of dramatic Earth changes as a result of climatic disruptions: earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, etc. We are also witnessing a surge in people protest as decades of corrupt or inefficient social systems are taking their toll. Yet within this outward surge of turmoil and disruption there are other shifts occurring, such as the transition from the industrial-globalization model of the last two centuries into a more ecological-cosmological worldview. We can perhaps say that our current struggles are between the present model marked by the inequalities of dysfunctional global systems, and that part of humanity which is realizing that a new model needs to be manifested and put into place. Thus, the revolution(s) we are currently witnessing are not only of the physical kind, with civil disobedience, rioting, and unrest. There are also revolutions occurring now in our perceptions and worldviews — a revolution in our collective psyche.
Why we are in need of a worldshift is that the old model is attempting to maintain its grip on power, resulting in resource wars, loss of civil liberties, and the on-going struggle for control and management. At the same time there are many forecasts trying to predict the outcome of the present geopolitical turmoil based upon what has gone before; there is a lack of ability to discern the uncertain, the unpredictable, and the unexpected. The western mindset has a preoccupation, or even obsession, with a linear view of history and progress. Yet the concept of a linear development of human civilizations is erroneous and misleading. Many ancient teachings, both spiritual and secular, and many indigenous cultures, have long known about and taught the concept of cyclic processes that repeat themselves over long periods of historical time. These expansions in social cycles also coincide, or are co-existent with, changes in perception and worldviews. In other words, major social revolutions are accompanied by great shifts in human consciousness. Why a positive worldshift is so timely is that these decades are ripe for a new consciousness to enter into our social systems and push for change at exactly the time when such systems are at their weakest point.
The spiral of cultural history involves a complex interplay of various cycles and systems; of social systems, energy systems, and communication revolutions — all co-dependent and integral. The 21st century has been reached through a growing series of critical thresholds — ecological, biological, social, and technological — moving towards current global, social, and environmental limits. However, at such thresholds new arrangements can be catalyzed into being. The ‘modern mind’ that has exerted itself upon the present world and which largely developed through a trajectory of western history and industrialization, finally arriving at the technological age, exhibits a great deal of short-sightedness. It is a narrow mental framework that either doesn’t quite seem to understand past patterns of historical change, or doesn’t want to. It seems to posses a great amount of guilt (myth of the Fall?); a large amount of blindness (the myth of progress?); and little historical remembrance (ignorance is bliss?). It is little wonder then that a majority of people living today, especially in the developed nations, are surprised, bemused, and somewhat dazed to find themselves staring into a melting pot of uncertainty.
It is our responsibility to recognize that we are living through an extraordinary passage of change, whereby what we do for the next twenty years, from now to 2030, will create the template for the future. And what happens between now and 2050 will be a crucial period for establishing these patterns of change and getting them in place to serve for the long run.
Our current global systems, now more complex and pervasive than ever, form an intricate and entangled web of interconnections, dependencies, and dubious alliances. We are, quite literally, struggling with the older energies of black goo, sulfuric slime, and the dangerous blackened coal pits where humans dig like slaves. Yet we need to recognize, and quickly, that there’s no infinity in a finite world. Despite some of the optimistic claims from the energy industry, planet Earth is a finite resource. The world we are moving into requires new myths, whereby we are not constrained by the powers of corporate greed, political tyranny, and the suppression of human creative vision. It would certainly help if we could break away from the culture of cultivating uselessness. As if bored with our experiences, we create a whole array of artless gadgets to amuse us and infantile our hours. We live in distracting times, racing towards the cliff edge like a convoy of excited, pharma-fuelled lemmings. Instead we should be using both our physical and our psychical energies into moving through this shift and preparing for a re-arrangement of life circumstances. Rather than hoping to maintain the cracking, crumbling, and now dysfunctional status quo we should be thinking about creating an alternative path. The industrial cultures of Modernity, which are attempting to model itself as a global culture, are an artificial device — a prosthetic artifact — that devalues our original and creative component. We may be in danger of replacing the creative capacity of the human mind with technological crutches; unless, that is, we are shocked back into our ‘rightful minds’.
Yet when faced with uncertainty we might be tempted to avoid seeking out the new and to search instead where we are most secure — still within the old comfort zones/systems. The following is a classic tale that illustrates this human tendency:
Some local villagers came upon Nasrudin one night crawling around on his hands and knees under a lamppost.
‘What are you looking for?’ they asked him.
‘I’ve lost the key to my house,’ he replied.
They all got down to help him look, but after a fruitless time of searching, someone thought to ask him where he had lost the key in the first place.
‘In the house,’ Nasrudin answered.
‘Then why are you looking under the lamppost?’ he is asked.
‘Because there is more light here,’ Nasrudin replied.
There will be obstacles in the years, decades ahead, yet at the same time we should be reassured that there very definitely is a future awaiting us too. The degree, and quality, of the change ahead will depend very much upon the degree to which human consciousness is able to change; and to the degree that we can collectively, in our myriad of different ways, help to usher in and manifest a positive worldshift.