By Gordon Dveirin
Our Moment to Act:
Conscious Evolution and the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities
Conscious Evolution and the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities
“Conscious evolution means that humans commit our life energy to making this planet a better place to live for all sentient beings.” Allen M. Schoen, Kindred Spirits
Implicit in the concept of conscious evolution is an ethical orientation, a guide to wise and compassionate action that naturally flows from our felt kinship with, and reverence for, the richly diverse and interdependent life that springs from the one great source with its infinitely creative potential. When we have widened the circle of our concern to this degree, embracing all that lives and the sacred life force itself, we awaken from what Einstein called “the optical delusion of separateness” and the selfishness it begets. In its place, the higher, creative intelligence from which life’s fullness springs begins to inform us and we are empowered to act not only freely and spontaneously, but also responsibly, sensitively, in synergy with others for the good of the whole. Imagine what our world can be like if we all, individually and collectively, rise to this level, with global conscience serving as our guide. Imagine what our future can be when we’ve agreed to act according to the Golden Rule that underlies all the world’s religions, doing toward all others, human and non-human alike, only as we ourselves would be done to.
This is not being fanciful. Beginning this autumn of 2011, as conscious evolutionaries, we will all have an opportunity to take an active step toward such a future by supporting a revived initiative to have the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities officially adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. This effort began 14 years ago in an attempt to balance the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted in 1948 in time for its 50th anniversary. The initial effort failed because mostly Western countries felt that responsibilities interfered with unrestricted freedom.
Individualism and laissez faire competition at any cost have been our Western way of defining freedom since the Industrial Age began. But the cost is becoming unbearable, leading to a “tragedy of the commons” on a global scale. For example, twenty per cent of our beloved fellow species will be extinct in less than thirty years if we don’t change our destructive patterns of behavior. As former president Bill Clinton said at a recent meeting in Quebec City, the days of win/lose in our deeply interdependent world are over. Win/win or lose/lose are now the only remaining options. Without shared responsibility to respect and protect one another’s rights and dignity, those rights and that dignity will not be protected and preserved.
The Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities is important, and we can all lobby our government representatives and each other to support its passage by the UN General Assembly. As fellow evolutionary leaders who recognize the flourishing future that wants to be born through us as our deepest impulse, we invite you to join us in this effort.
