Ashok Gangadean (USA)
Gest Professor of Global Philosophy, Haverford College
Founder-Director of the Global Dialogue Institute
Director of the Margaret Gest Center for Cross-Cultural Spirituality
Co-Convenor of the World Commission on Global Consciousness
http://www.awakeningmind.org/Videolecture April 2012 Haverford College
Global Enlightenment: Our Evolutionary Shift to Integral Science and Medicine
Videolecture September 2012
THE IMPORTANCE OF TRANSPERSONAL LITERACY IN THE EMERGENCE OF AWAKENED GLOBAL CONSCIOUSNESS: OUR MATURATION AS A SPECIES
In my earlier keynote presentation to EUROTAS in Freiburg I situated the "transpersonal" movement within a great evolutionary shift in our human condition. When we stand back from our more localized mental lenses and cultural perspectives and dilate our heartminds into the more expansive global (holistic, integral, dialogical) space across and between diverse worldviews, astounding patterns come into relief that could not be clearly seen before. In this global space, the deep common ground where our diverse worldviews meet and co-originate, we begin to see more clearly that our great evolutionary elders (Socrates, Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Lao Tzu, Rumi…to mention a few) were calling us to more powerful "transpersonal" awakened global consciousness and cultural literacy. In diverse ways they noticed that humanity has been lodged in a more "adolescent" stage of literacy that produces "egocentric" and "egomental" forms of life, experience and cultures.
In my earlier keynote I pointed out how these great innovative teachers were urging humanity to a higher form of ((integral script))* that opens the way to deeper encounters with the ((Unified Field of Reality)). I suggest that the "transpersonal" (trans-egomental) movement has pioneered more potent literacy in sync with this great evolutionary shift to "trans-egoic" ((global consciousness)). Here we see that the maturation of the ((whole person)) is "trans-personal", and calls for this maturation to ((global literacy)). The mature ((person)) cannot be understood or encountered within the fragmenting script of /egomental/ or /monologic/ literacy. The true "Self" is ((I-Thou)) in nature, and beyond the /I-It/ literacy and egomental worldviews. The heart of the "transpersonal" movement, we suggest, helps open the way to the ((Integral Literacy)) that dilates space for ((human)) flourishing in our Global Age.
* In my journey over decades as I discovered this fundamental shift across our teachings I found it essential to introduce explicit "markers" to help us see, learn and remember which "dimension" of life (language, meaning, experience, culture = literacy) we were living. So I chose to mark /egomental/ life and language with "/…/" signs, and to mark the shift into ((integral…holistic, dialogic)) life with "((…))" signs.
