In this dialogue, I talk with one of our fellow visionaries (and media activist) Duane Elgin about certain of the core themes Living Dialogues has expressed since its inception. Included among these Living Dialogues perspectives are: (1) the fact that we live in an “alive universe”, in which our dialogues as humans are not exclusively with ourselves, or even “within ourselves”, but from my perspective, also with all of manifest and unmanifest creation -- involving a feeling for the natural world and the cosmic potential for goodness (acknowledged by Einstein among countless others), which supports us in our hope for an evolved future beyond the destructive fragmentation of our current cultural settings; (2) the recognition that as a species, our human family is currently in an adolescent stage of development, now beginning a kind of collective rite of passage into a greater maturity, so that we can go beyond demonizing dualism as a survival strategy into a greater sense of understanding and unity within diversity (“out of the many we are one”) – and so keep pace as a species within the evolutionary imperative coming from an infinitely expanding universe, which science shows us is continuing to further complexify and integrate at an ever more rapid pace; and (3) recognizing that, as I often say, “dialogue is the language of evolutionary transformation”, that we can only make this evolutionary adaptation and survival leap in concert with one another, a shared midwiving if you will -- involving multiple ongoing dialogues between all participants in this birthing of a new and deeper required understanding of ourselves and our world.

As the well-known anthropologist Margaret Mead once said: “For humanity to evolve, the conversation must deepen”. This is what the program Living Dialogues is about, with myself, my guests, and all of our deep listeners continually and collectively evoking further insights of this new understanding from and with one another.

In this concluding Part 3 of my 3-part dialogue with Duane Elgin, I focus on at the first of the three core themes of Living Dialogues set forth above, the foundational awareness that we exist in an “alive universe”. In order to survive, much less thrive, as a species, we recognize the need to move beyond our adolescent preoccupation with materialism into a more mature, reflective, and co-creative consciousness. This fascination with materialism is a result of our “modern” conventional scientific world view, which for the last four centuries has viewed the world beyond our subjective consciousness as objective, fragmented, and inert – there, essentially, to be manipulated for our own purposes by humanity. As Duane observes, if the universe is essentially dead at the foundations, then consumerism makes sense, but now contemporary science is finding that the universe is, in fact, integrated into a whole conscious system. Despite the enormous distances that separate its different parts, the universe functions as an integrated unified whole, so fragmentation is being overcome with unification.

As I have observed in other dialogues, contemporary science is now confirming this “wholistic” consciousness that we can also access by in effect “remembering” and reawakening to our indigenous heritage, where as a species we experienced ourselves as embedded in an alive universe. As Barry Lopez observed in Arctic Dreams, “the land is an animal that contains all animals” (see his praise for Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest and the dialogues Paul and I engaged in in Programs 35 and 36 in this series). Duane adds that these new “discoveries” by contemporary science do not constitute a new idea. In addition to the worldview of native peoples everywhere, Plato in our Western culture said a couple of thousand years ago that the universe “is a single living creature that encompasses all living creatures within it”. As we begin to understand that the universe is really a living universe, then our experience with the soulful dimensions of life and relationships become so rich and meaningful that a consumerist lifestyle appears pale by comparison.

We know that in general our culture is in great crisis because we have literally a multibillion dollar industry of anti-depressants that’s being sold, as we speak, to many millions of individuals throughout the world, so that there clearly is a crisis of meaning and purpose in the midst of the consumer lifestyle. Joseph Campbell once described the finding of the Grail (what in the East is called “enlightenment”) as awakening to aligning one’s own personal energies with the inexhaustible energies of the universe. This requires an understanding that we exist as an integral part of “the force” of a self-renewing, constantly regenerating living cosmos. When that pours into time through our own consciousness, we experience ourselves as fully alive, embraced in a caring intelligence vibrating with purpose and meaning, accessing the full richness of our inheritance as divine human beings on the planet. This kind of poetic or mythical or mystical understanding is now being confirmed in its own way by Western science. By bringing together the best, enduring aspects of both our indigenous and modern mind heritages in dialogue, we can “transcend and include” both in a new and renewed integrative vision and experience. In so doing, we can reconnect what Vaclav Havel calls our “transcendent anchor” with our lived, day to day, experience, move beyond temporary pleasures into real joy, and come together in collaborative contribution to our shared alive universe.

SUBSCRIBE HERE FOR FREE TO LIVING DIALOGUES AND IN THE COMING

WEEKS HEAR DUNCAN CAMPELL’S DIALOGUES WITH OTHER GROUND-BREAKING TRANSFORMATIONAL THINKERS LISTED ON THE WEBSITE WWW.LIVINGDIALOGUES.COM. TO LISTEN TO PREVIOUS RELATED DIALOGUES ON THIS SITE, SCROLL DOWN ON THE LIVING DIALOGUES SHOW PAGE HERE -- OR CLICK ON THE NAME OF A GUEST ON THE LIST AT THE RIGHT -- TO HEAR DUNCAN’S DIALOGUES WITH DR. ANDREW WEIL, MATTHEW FOX, COLEMAN BARKS, RUPERT SHELDRAKE, JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE, DEEPAK CHOPRA, CAROLINE MYSS, VINE DELORIA, JR., MICHAEL DOWD (THE UNIVERSE STORY OF THOMAS BERRY AND BRIAN SWIMME), STANISLAV GROF, RICHARD TARNAS, MARC BEKOFF AND JANE GOODALL, RICHARD MOSS, PAUL HAWKEN, PAUL RAY, JOSEPH ELLIS, AND OTHER EVOLUTIONARY THINKERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

To order a full transcript of this program you can contact me at my website: www.livingdialogues.com or at [email protected]. Many thanks again for your attentive deep listening in helping co-create this program. All the best, Duncan