Tag: spiritual power

Categories
- Consultation - Equality of Women and Men Development Health Care Oneness

Utilizing Material Means

Achievement, we know from experience, requires the expenditure of material means. Social and economic development, albeit with a spiritual and transcendent intention, is no exception. Antithetically, there are many societies, some of whom may consider themselves servants of the best interests of humankind,  who gauge achievement in terms of the raw quantity of grants received, employees hired, and monetary resources consumed. Socioeconomic development (SED) programs of the future, are expected to utilize more accurate, humanistic, and noble outcome measures.

Communities generate funding for their own SED projects. Governmental or NGO donor agencies dispense grants to applicant organizations. In all cases however, funding should be utilized for the betterment of the people being served, not for the satisfaction of bureaucratic outcome measures imposed by the donors. Indigenous capacity building is the mainstay of authentic SED work.

Trust is paramount for the continued donation of funding. Systems, and not individuals, must be responsible for safeguarding the transparency and clarity of the financial operations of any SED organization. An eternity of financial drought will follow for every lapse of integrity in the process of money-handling. Not only is corruption of a willful and depraved manner unacceptable, but so too is the lackadaisicalness and imprecision characterizing so many governmental and charitable organizations. No wonder therefore at the little respect awarded to these organizations in popular conception. Inefficiency and incompetence are no less disillusioning than frank corruption. Evidence-based practices of financial regularity will serve as prophylaxis against an ethos that conduces to individual unscrupulousness.

Beyond concrete inputs and outputs, variables in a re-conception of efficiency should be expanded to include such things as creativity, selflessness, and sustainability of an employee’s motivation. We know that careerism can motivate people, but have we explored how spiritual values, self-sacrifice, and empowerment can motivate a work-force? Obsequiousness to one’s superiors accomplishes narrow aims. Camaraderie and unity in a collegial  team-environment  unleashes ingenuity and devotion that  reach super-human levels of dedication and excellence. The love one bears for oneself is delusional and finite. The love we bear for each other can be infinite and inexhaustible.

Far-farsightedness, a virtue lost on modern financial giants, entails expanding goals to include intangibles such as interpersonal rapport and talent-vocation matching, instead of the management-worker relationship — the worker-worker relationship should take precedence. The firing and hiring of individuals as the fundamental action of  human resource acquisition is the single-most destructive characteristic of modern economics. A vast and inexhaustible productive resource comes into existence in the interactions and familiarities professionals co-create together as they innovate the path to their next collective objective. The efficiency and joy, the exuberance and power of unity, as an intangible but positively priceless resource goes unquantified and unpurchased, altogether despoiled, as employers buy and sell individuals unaware of their collective efficiencies developed through mutual rapport.

The capacity of participants in SED projects to cooperate and coordinate united action determines their success. Over and above material inputs and outputs, a storehouse of spiritual and intangible resources remain as gems un-excavated from within the mine of human potential. Employment and production will reach summits of achievement  when harmonious cooperation is sought as a resource along with personal abilities. Loyalty and consecration,  resourcefulness and organizing ability, courage and zeal, tenacity, sagacity, fidelity, devotion, and vigilance–all these constitute the intangible powers of unity.

The triumph of selfless virtues testifies to the efficacy of their influence, an influence which should come to increasingly characterize the sphere of action in social and economic development. Material means are a treasure entrusted to an organization by those who make donations sacrificially, joyfully, and with a consciousness that its custodians will no doubt exercise an exalted attitude of scruples, gratitude, and economy in deference to the sacrifice that those donations entailed. To ensure the continued survival of SED organizations we have no doubt that such an attitude must and will be exercised.

The gap between one’s material means and one’s achievements is the measure of the potency of these spiritual virtues, and the proportion to which they have been utilized. Increasingly will these intangibles constitute the tipping point in the balance between forces of constructiveness and liberation on the one hand, and the forces of exploitation and individualism, on the other. The new centers of economic power will be the educational institutions that cultivate and reward intangible virtues of human character and spiritual ideals of unity and cooperation. By their aid and their insensible influence the truth will be made manifest in the realm of means as brilliant as it currently is in the world of spirit.

 

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Farm Workers

 

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Categories
- Prevailing Conceptions Human Nature Power

Structures of Contest

With the understanding that the human being is a potential instrument for the expression of spiritual powers and capacities within social realty, just as a lump of iron has the potential for the expression of magnetic forces within the physical world, then how do we conceive of social structures and their role in fostering human nature?

Our current models of society have normalized a contest of power.  They are based on the assumptions that human beings are only competitive, egoistic, and selfish by nature; thus the role of social institutions are to mitigate and regulate selfishness in an equal playing field in order to maximize utility – much like the role of a referee in a competitive sports game.  We have deluded ourselves into believing that the mythical free market, driven by some “invisible hand”, will bring about well-being; we have fooled ourselves into thinking that a tug-of-war will result in movement.  So it is seen today, not only in sports, but in the economic, political, legal, and educational systems of society the results of acting on these assumptions – the disintegration and breakdown of academia, the collapse of economic vitality, mistrust and apathy towards governance, extreme moral relativism in law, and utter and irreparable ecological disaster.

There are other assumptions about human nature and society, including those being advanced here – that human beings have a spiritual nature, with spiritual capacities and powers; that the nature of human beings is cooperative, reciprocal, and selfless.  The culture of contest that is normalized in prevailing thought is severely constraining the developing of our latent potentialities.  In our age of interdependence and imminent maturity, collective prosperity can only be achieved through creating systems, environments, and communities that cultivate our spiritual sources of power.  It is an evolutionary imperative.  Otherwise, we will continue to have ruinous consequences.

Categories
- Three Protagonists Power

Spiritual Magnetisim

Spiritual sources of power and capacity are relatively more intangible than material sources; they nonetheless exist and exert influence just the same.  One way to discuss their dynamics and learn how to draw upon them is to use the analogy of a magnet.

A magnet is an object, composed of a common substance like iron, and when under proper conditions, creates an invisible magnetic field – harnessing the power inherent in invisible electric charges to produce an invisible electromagnetic force.  The only difference between a magnetized piece of iron and a non-magnetized piece of iron is the internal alignment of its elements.  Basically, if the electron configuration among the atoms are such that the poles and charges are all aligned in the same direction, the material will produce a net total magnetic field.  If the electron configurations are in different and random directions, the material will not be magnetized.

Quite an insightful analogy, one must say!  The human soul (magnet) has the latent capacity to manifest spiritual powers (magnetism), such as the power to unify and the power to attract other hearts through goodly deeds and a praiseworthy character.  The human being acquires these powers through the proper alignment (electronic configuration) of its thoughts, words, actions, attitudes, etc., with the spiritual forces and laws that govern reality.

Social institutions, such as the family, the state, the university, the clinic, and so on, can also manifest collective powers of justice and unity, for instance, through their proper internal alignment – both of individuals constituting those agencies and of the structure, values, purpose, and nature of the organization itself.

Likewise, communities, when composed of individuals and institutions described above, will manifest characteristics of love, oneness, and reciprocity.  It will become a wholly magnetized environment that elicits the capacities of all towards contributing to a process of collective betterment.

Categories
Human Nature Power

Spiritual Sources of Power

The conventional analysis of the role of power in society has only focused on material sources of power.  The discourse of this blog acknowledges that civilization has both a material and spiritual dimension, that science and religion are complementary systems of knowledge, and that human nature has both a material and spiritual nature.  All of these notions follow from a certain understanding of reality itself – that reality, on an ontological level, has a spiritual dimension, as well as a physical one.  We have physical laws and forces, which we have only recently begun to comprehend and harness; and we have spiritual laws and forces, which are relatively more intangible that we have a more dim understanding of at present.  However, we respond to spiritual forces regardless of our understanding of them, just like we respond to gravity regardless of our understanding of it.  It follows easily, from this understanding of reality, that there are physical or material sources of power, and there are likewise spiritual sources of power.  How do we draw up and factor in these powers?

Humanity’s history clearly proves the ability to conceive of power in more creative ways than brutish military strength or manipulative economic clout; evidence demonstrates that the human race has always tapped into spiritual sources of power.  These include the power of beauty, the power of justice, the power of humility, the power of cooperation and reciprocity, the power of selflessness.  Even more obviously is the power of truth, responsible for great artistic, scientific, and philosophical advances; the power of character, inspiring countless generations to create positive change; the power of unity, without which we have no progress; and the power of love.

Before delving into the process of drawing upon these powers, we can already see by this short list of spiritual sources of power that they are unlimited resources – power need not be reduced to a scarce material good for which groups must compete.  There is not a fixed amount of humility, cooperation, unity, or integrity, which, when used up is then gone.  Understanding that intangibility is not mutually exclusive with existence helps one understand these powers’ unlimited ability to transform society and human thought.