MIND BEFORE MATTER

        Mind is implicit in the universe,         
        Unfolding over eons into us,
        The grandest gift we know it could disburse,          
        Though not the only one that ever was.

        The odds are infinite that other minds         
        Have manifested in the vasts of space;         
        And that the cosmos shows implied designs         
        That we will soon discover how to trace.

        But should we then personify this source,          
        As ancient sages did who first inferred         
        Some deity had set us on our course        
        By the authority of His high word?       
   
             If only for the sake of poetry, 
             Let’s grant our Source a personality.

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for Paul H. Ray
 

CREATING A GLOBAL WISDOM CULTURE: 

 A PREAMBLE

“Creating a global wisdom culture.”  What might that mean?  More fundamentally: what is wisdom?  What does it mean to be wise?

We probably know wisdom when we see it and exclaim, “That was the wise thing to do” or “That was wise behavior or a wise attitude or perspective,” meaning that some other alternative would be ill-considered, erratic or stupid, and thus proving less valuable than the outcome of a wise choice.  Wise choices bring valuable results.

Therefore, a global wisdom culture would cultivate and grow the best harvest of benefits for all.

By that measure, prevailing human cultures in the 21st century are less than wise, but rather cause much harm to human beings, to other creatures, and to the viability of the planet at large.  We might more aptly dub ourselves Homo errans than Homo sapiens.

True, we are prone to error, legendarily fallible—born broken, some traditions proclaim—but yet redeemable, we may hope, tractable to wiser discernments and behaviors.  And that would be the point of learning to make wise choices and take wise courses of action.  We can do better than we have done, and the world now urgently needs us to do so.

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IS THIS WISE?

     There’s no religion or philosophy
     So far that wins and rules all hearts and minds,
     That works to lift us out of misery,
     Leading us from temptations of all kinds.

     Where then is wholesome wisdom to be found
     That may be cultivated in our souls,
     Sprouting in us until our minds grow sound
     And all are then pursuing worthy goals?

          For every choice you make, one rule applies:
          Before you act, consider—“Is this wise?”

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 ON CREATING
A GLOBAL WISDOM CULTURE

Now that the word global has grown so pervasive, I say it’s time to develop a culture that suits our era and our urgent planetary needs: a Global Wisdom Culture.

Culture is not simply something that befalls us and assimilates us into itself from when we’re born, but it is also a shaping force that can itself be reshaped intentionally, as social scientist Paul H. Ray and others declare.  This is a proposition to examine, and one with vital implications.

Sociologist and survey researcher Ray and his colleague Sherry Ruth Anderson published in 2001 an influential book, The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World, the premise of which is that established cultures can be intentionally redesigned or reprogrammed to be more salutary, just as an individual can learn to live more healthily by practicing wholesome regimens.  People can change and cultures can change, even radically and rapidly—and now is an urgent time for such world-wide cultural changes to evolve and manifest.

The fundamental question to explore in this regard is “How can a culture be redesigned and changed intentionally and successfully?  This is a question for social scientists and socio-cultural engineers to address, as in fact many such opinion leaders are even now doing with concerted efforts to leverage a “global shift” in human life ways toward practices that are sustainable and life-enhancing planet wide, evolving toward a viable Earthwise and future-friendly culture.

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ONCE

  What once I saw as a transcendent light
  That brightened my then cold and lonely soul,
  Illuminating me with mystic sight,
  Revealed a vision that would make me whole—

  Though only for a day or two until
  The dull, bleak sublunary trance returned,
  For visions are not subject to one’s will,
  Or not by any means that I have learned.

  What yet remains in memory still glows
  As hope that I may someday see beyond
  That veil of mystery where no one goes
  Without a sacred sorcerer’s magic wand.

       Yet glad enough am I that once I saw
       What seemed a realm of Light and Love and Awe.

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THE GAME OF LIFE

    Beyond the Veil, what mysteries lie concealed
    That by and by will finally be revealed?
    For let’s assume, as many have declared:
    From ultimate extinction we are spared;

    What seems like death to those who still remain
    Is merely moving to a higher plane,
    Transcending time and space until again
    We choose another round as mortal men.

    If this be so, then what we are to do,
    The sages say, is ardently pursue
    Those goals we choose when once again the Veil
    Descends and we return to what seems jail.

         But think instead that this is all a sport,
         The way our spirits frolic and cavort.

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DESTINY

      I may be one among the last to live
      Before all hell breaks loose upon this Earth,
      Before we show what no God would forgive:
      Our negligence of what all life is worth.

      We’ve learned enough cosmology to know
      That out of absolutely nothing we—
      This universe that set our lives aglow—
      Emerged from some divine mentality.

      And yet a stupor has enveloped us,
      A spell of grandiosity and greed
      So that all portents now are ominous
      Unless we find out what we truly need:

           Implicit in our souls to realize
           In time—is that we can and must grow wise.

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