BECOMING HUMANITY'S NEXT R/EVOLUTION
Five Practical Techniques to Enrich Our Lives, Sustain Our Communities, and Bring Global Peace
by
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Chapter 1 Overview
If so many of us want positive, lasting change in our lives and in our communities, why are initiatives seeking such change so difficult to get started, move forward, and successfully complete? Why do they seem to invite so much resistance, so many unintended consequences, and so much internal corruption? This chapter offers in depth answers to these questions.
Scientists tell us there have been three transformations that produced important, lasting benefits for every member of the human race: a transformation in our cognitive abilities that took place roughly 70,000 years ago, a transformation in how we produce food that began roughly 12,000 years ago, and a transformation in how we discover truths about the natural world that began about 500 years ago. To emphasize the evolutionary and irreversible character of these transformations and distinguish them from the more narrowly focused social experiments of the last two centuries, I refer to them as humanity's three successful r/evolutions.
While all three moved humanity irreversibly forward, none adequately addressed either the fundamental structure of human consciousness or what some call the human condition that has brought us to our present state of personal dis-ease, social disharmony, economic stagnation, and environmental decline. To become more joyful and satisfied with our lives and make our communities more peaceful and sustainable, we will need to directly influence the underlying structure of our individual consciousness and the human condition on which our communities depend. Many believe that neither of these goals is achievable.
This manifesto asserts that elevating humanity's overall condition is not only possible but easily achieved through the growing use by individuals of a new class of soft technologies; technologies based on fundamental principles of human neurophysiology, consciousness, and social interaction. This manifesto offers everyone a clear understanding of five such technologies. The overall trajectory will be to move our communities forward by giving citizens the tools they need to move themselves upward toward a state of inner wholeness of mind; a state that automatically expresses our full potential for steadiness of thought, joy, empathy, compassion, generosity, creativity, intelligence, and wisdom.
When roughly 1 percent of those living in any local, state, or national community begins using at least two of these five techniques, all others living in that community — and the community as a whole — will begin to measurably benefit. This forward movement will take place regardless of what practitioners and members of the larger community already believe philosophically, religiously, or socially and regardless of whether anyone believes that these techniques will actually have the positive influence promised.
This first chapter describes how our lives become compartmentalized into five different realms, and how each of these realms aggregate into the five corresponding levels of our local, state, and national communities. It describes how these various realms and levels form a global matrix of human suffering and discontent that diminishes the life of every human being and strongly resists our personal and collective efforts to bring about positive, lasting change. This chapter also describes why a new class of tools can provide the means by which we may steadily transform humanity's matrix of suffering and discontent into a strong, resilient, global matrix of personal well-being, positive achievement, and collective sustainability.
Chapter 2 Overview
Is there a universal structure of human consciousness that lies at the heart of humanity's global matrix of suffering and discontent? This chapter offers an in depth, affirmative answer to this question.
Many believe that human consciousness is an unknowable mystery. Others believe it is best confined to conversations about the individual human psyche. Both positions are misinformed. Understanding the universally divided structure of human consciousness is fundamental to understanding both who we are as individuals and the global society in which we live. More important than understanding, the reintegration of our two fields of consciousness is the key to a fully developed life and to the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of every local, state, and national tier of global society.
Regardless of whether our personal interest is the achievement of happiness; material abundance; self-development; better interpersonal relationships; better educational and workplace experiences; healthier, more sustainable communities; improved public institutions; better public leaders; or all of these, the foundation of all real and lasting progress in our personal lives and in our communities begins with an understanding that each of us has hidden within ourselves an abundant source of humanity's core leadership qualities.
These qualities are steadiness of mind; unconditional joy; abundant empathy, compassion, and generosity toward all others; and abundant creativity, intelligence, and wisdom in addressing the challenges we face each day. Our well-being and the well-being of our communities evolve over time based on the degree to which we and others express these qualities in our ordinary daily thoughts, intentions, spoken words, and actions.
Chapter 2 discusses how these qualities flow from a vast inner reservoir of pure consciousness most of us have yet to experience and can scarcely believe exists. It discusses how, to one degree or another, these qualities make their way from this reservoir to an area of our surface minds where our thoughts, intentions, words, and actions first form. It also describes the three processes that, from the time of our births, divide our consciousness into two mutually-isolated fields and how this division gives rise to the five different states of consciousness each of us is capable of experiencing. Finally, chapter 2 describes some recent research suggesting that the inner, inexhaustible source of our finest qualities is in fact a second, vast field of human consciousness accessible to all.
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About the Book
Who among us wouldn’t like to have more joy in their lives each day and live in a more vibrant community and peaceful world? From ancient times down to the present day, humanity’s best minds have sought a path by which anyone, anywhere, embracing any point of view and lifestyle could build such a life and, at the same time, help create more vibrant, sustainable, peaceful communities.
Now, informed by these elevated minds, Becoming Humanity’s Next R/Evolution offers a practical, scalable way to achieve the life, the communities, and the world each of us wants and humanity desperately needs. The key is not mass conversion to a new religious or social doctrine or the global application of a new physical or digital technology. Rather, it is the daily use of at least two of five simple, proven techniques based on universal principles of human neurophysiology, consciousness, and social interaction.
When used by roughly 1 percent of any community, these techniques will begin to measurably elevate the social, economic, and environmental stability of that community. As individuals and communities on every continent and in every culture begin moving forward and upward each day, humanity’s global matrix of suffering and discontent will begin to transform into a matrix of wellbeing and positive achievement. In this next r/evolutionary matrix, we will finally unlock life’s deepest mysteries and begin permanently colonizing the moon, Mars, and perhaps beyond.
About the Author
Eric Hutchins’ life-long quest has been to live a full, joyful life in a more sustainable world. At university, he read in psychology, sociology, and anthropology and studied social philosophers from Plato, Burke, and Paine to Marx and Gandhi. He also began the daily practice of a traditional, self-transcending form of introspection. For five decades, he’s maintained his twice-daily introspective practices and East-West studies of human consciousness. His goal is to share humanity’s most effective techniques and help begin humanity’s fourth global r/evolution. He lives on the Central California coast and may be contacted at www.TheNextRev.site.