The Ten Point Credo of an Evolved Consciousness
- I am part of the world. The world is not outside of me, and I am not outside of the world. The world is in me, and I am in the world.
- I am more than a skin-and-bone material organism: my body, and its cells and organs are manifestations of what is truly me: a self-sustaining, self-evolving dynamic system arising, persisting and developing in interaction with other such systems and with the world around me.
- I am one of the highest, most evolved manifestations of the drive toward coherence and wholeness in the world. My essence is this cosmic drive. It is the same essence that is inherent in all the systems that arise and evolve in the universe.
- There are no absolute boundaries and divisions among the systems that arise and evolve in the universe, only transition points where one set of relations yields prevalence to another. In me, in this self-maintaining and self-evolving coherence- and wholeness-oriented system, the relations that integrate the cells and organs of my body are prevalent. Beyond my body other relations gain prevalence: those that drive toward coherence and wholeness in humanity, nature, and throughout the universe.
- The separate identity I attach to my fellow humans is a convenient convention to facilitate my interaction with them. My family and my community are just as much “me” as the cells and organs of my body. There are only gradients of intensity in the relations that distinguishing individuals from each other and from the world, no absolute divisions and boundaries. There are no “others” in the world: we are all dynamic, coherence and wholeness oriented systems in the world and we are part of the world and so part of each other.
- Collaboration, not competition, is the royal road to the wholeness and coherence that hallmarks healthy systems in the world. Collaboration calls for trust, empathy and solidarity. Comprehension, conciliation, and forgiveness are not signs of weakness but signs of courage. Harming others, even under the banner of patriotism and national or corporate interest is a mistaken intention. I am part of whoever I harm, and so I harm myself.
- “The good” for me, and for everyone in my world, is not the possession and accumulation of wealth. Wealth, whether in money or in a material resource, is but a means for maintaining myself in my environment. As exclusively mine, it commandeers a part of the resources that all living beings on the planet need to share if they are to live and thrive. Exclusive wealth is a threat to everyone in the community of life on the planet, and because I as well as the holders of wealth are part of this community, it is a threat to the wealthy, and to me.
- A healthy person has pleasure in giving: it is a higher pleasure than having. I am healthy and whole when I value giving over having. The true measure of accomplishment and excellence is my readiness to give, whatever I can give without harming myself, my family and those in my care. A community that values giving over having is a community of healthy persons, thriving through solidarity and love. Sharing enhances the community, while possessing and accumulating creates demarcation, invites competition and fuels envy. The share-society is the norm for all communities of life on the planet; the have-society is an aberration.
- Only life and its development have intrisic value as ends in themselves. All other things have value only insofar as they add to or enhance life and its development. Material things, and the energies and substances they need or generate, have value only insofar they contribute to the development of life in the community of all beings on the planet.
- I recognize my responsibility for evolving my consciousness, and through my example for helping the evolution of consciousness in others. We have been part of the aberration of human consciousness in the modern world, and we need to be part of the evolution that overcomes that aberration. Living and working toward this goal is my duty, as a conscious member of a conscious species in a conscious cosmos.