Politics of Being

Yesterday I received the newsletter from the Royal Society of Edinburgh referring on the front page to Scotland’s tech opportunity and envisaging its bright future. This focus is a typical one, implying that progress is primarily technological when, as Dr Albert Schweitzer pointed out, socialisation is more important and spiritual progress critical. Then, some 25 years ago, Ervin Laszlo wrote a book entitled The Inner Limits of Mankind, which could form the subtext of the present work. Thomas Legrand has a PhD in economics, and works in the field of sustainability for UN agencies, private companies and NGOs. Significantly, he is closely associated with the work of the late Thich Nhat Hanh and lives near his monastery at Plum Village. Matthew Ricard writes the foreword, observing that one of the main purposes of spirituality is ‘to actualise the potential of goodness and wisdom that is present within us… setting out on a path of transformation, from delusion to wisdom, from self-centredness to altruism, from entanglement with suffering to inner freedom.’ In this respect, a quotation from Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize in Economics lecture runs like a leitmotif through the book: ‘a core goal of public policy should be to facilitate the development of institutions that bring out the best in humans.’

Most readers will agree with Thomas’s argument and that we cannot avoid a profound cultural change, ‘a change of mindset, worldviews, and values, or, at a more fundamental level, a shift in consciousness.’ (p. 1) His diagnosis – also that of Arnold Toynbee over 50 years ago – is that there is an imbalance between outer and inner development that urgently needs addressing, so that we can constructively manage our technological power in a world of increasing complexity and interconnectedness. As the Dalai Lama has also remarked, ‘the fundamental problem is that at every level we are giving too much attention to the external, material aspects of life, while neglecting moral ethics and inner values.’ (p. 4) We now need to be asking ourselves about the nature of an emerging planetary wisdom culture underpinned by the politics of being, as explained in this radical and pioneering work. In order to contextualise what follows, Thomas shares his own journey of personal transformation.

The first part of the book highlights our obsolete development path and the evolutionary crisis that we face where a focus on being is proposed as the new development paradigm (also referred to in The Earth Charter). As Elena Mustakova also argues in her book Global Unitive Healing reviewed in the last issue, spiritual values are the foundation of the politics of being outlined in the second part with chapters on understanding, life, happiness, love, peace, mindfulness and light. The third part considers a wide-ranging agenda for action across the board in the fields of childhood and family, education, work and organisation, health, food and agriculture, nature, justice, economy and governance – all with many specific and concrete proposals. Finally, Thomas considers the politics of being in practice – we live in one world as many nations, and we need leaders of integrity who have developed their inner being.

Although immensely timely, the political and economic establishment lags far behind this prophetic study that nevertheless indicates a viable – indeed necessary – way forward from ‘egosystem to ecosystem’, drawing on the evolutionary vision of the Baha’is, Sri Aurobindo, Teilhard de Chardin, Edgar Morin, Barbara Marx Hubbard and Charles Eisenstein. We need to nourish three essential connections: ‘to ourselves, to other human beings, and to non-human beings’, all in terms of our true nature. This is the inner path to sustainability that instantiates such higher values as truth, freedom, justice, respect for life, happiness, love, peace. (p. 63) As Gandhi reminded us, ‘there is no way to peace, peace is the way.’ As many other commentators including the late Hazel Henderson have also argued, we need to replace GNP and adopt new indicators focusing on well-being, flourishing and quality of life that also encourage our individual spiritual and ethical development within the context of what Thich Nhat Hanh called inter-being.

It is important to emphasise that individual and collective evolution go hand in hand (p. 338). This entails a shift of emphasis towards our relational nature based on community, mutuality and reciprocity. Thomas proposes that each nation should cultivate its own self-awareness in terms of history, culture, contributions and evolutionary potential, which requires inspiring ‘Being Leaders’ with spiritual intelligence (p. 357) to come to the fore. Thomas is both an optimist and a realist, one who has taken a bold and visionary step into the future, opening up a new path which he summarises in 10 core messages underpinned by both science and spiritual wisdom. A first step is to raise awareness of the principles that he outlines, bringing them into the public arena so that people can help co-create what Charles Eisenstein calls the beautiful world that we know in our hearts is possible, but which requires our full commitment if such a new system is to be manifest.