Radio evolve Global

Eugene Pustoshkin is a clinical psychologist from Saint Petersburg, Russia. He is also one of the main translators and interpreters of Ken Wilber’s integral thinking in Russia, and editor of the online integral journal, Eros & Kosmos (http://eroskosmos.org).

But Russia itself, with its unique place between European and Asian cultures, has its own history of integral thinkers Philosophers like Vladimir Solovyov, developmental theorists like Lev Vygotsky, but also literary giants like Dostojevsky and Tolstoy, are part of the integral lineage. After two generations of communist ideological domination, there is a new generation of young Russians who are connecting both with their unique Russian heritage and with new forms of integral thinking and practice, such as Holoscendence.

In this week’s Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger speaks with Eugene Pustoshkin about what we can learn from Russia to develop a truly global integral thinking.

Thinking about global change is often daunting. How do we influence the complex systems that we are enmeshed in? This is a question that concerns Otto Scharmer. He is a Senior Lecturer at MIT in Boston and founder of the Presencing Institute. But he is best known for his book Theory U, which has become the bible for change makers working with organizations. He’s also famous for developing the eight acupuncture points for transforming capitalism. Otto Scharmer explores and innovates with the potential of collective presence in his work with governments, big companies and the thousands of social activists around the world who are striving to reinvent education, health, business, and governance systems worldwide. He brings the spirit of a new form of collective mindfulness to address the complex networks and problems that we face today.

This week on Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger talks with Otto Scharmer about how collective mindfulness can be a powerful tool for global change.

A dialogue with Christopher Cooke

Our wounded planet needs more than sustainable solutions. “Sustainable” isn’t a very inspiring or enlivening goal. What about solutions that regenerate life on all levels? Integral activist Christopher Cooke works in many countries around the world to help to develop new “regenerative solutions” for organizations and individuals. One of his focus points is a new holistic agriculture that takes into account far more than the crops, soil, and water: “regenerative practices use our resources in a way that restores and enhances its biological, psychological, social and cultural functions,” he says. And he also notes that we only can be regenerative if we cultivate a new integral awareness between us.

Christopher Cooke shows on his website 3LM Network many examples of this approach. Here is a video that shows how how we can produce wool with integral awareness:

Juanita Brown is internationally recognized for the dialogue method that she developed with others. This method, called The World Cafe, has spread with amazing speed around the globe, used in big conferences as well as in companies and organisations. The World Café is more than a method to Juanita Brown. She experiences it as a process of coming together and opening to collective intelligence.

Juanita Brown started in her youth as a social activist – as an adversarial social activist, as she now would point out. Her interest in new forms of dialogue was inspired by her interest to find new creative engagements with people who we call the “other,” those who think in a different way than we do. She began to ask: Can we together, even when we think differently from each other, “shape our futures through conversations that matter?” To create conversations across our differences calls for the development of new forms of dialogical activism. This is what Juanita Brown has dedicated her life to.

Thomas Steininger talks with Juanita Brown about “conversations that matter.”

Five years ago, Rajan Venkatesh became a farmer in Sawantwadi, in Maharashtra State, India. This was a very surprising choice. Not only are farmers committing suicide in extremely high numbers because the weather and the market are devastatingly unpredictable, but Venkatesh had never been a farmer before. He is highly educated; he’s a former journalist with the Times of India and taught journalism in Mumbai and New Delhi. Moreover, for many years, he was an educator, running Bodhshala, a rural mountain village school in Uttarakhand. Deeply interested in the functioning of traditional Indian society and its livelihoods, Venkatesh is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s vision: what is good for the community, what strengthens it, what makes families prosperous – this has to be the curriculum, the matters to be learned or studied. To follow these principles, Venkatesh made himself a learner again and became a farmer in the Indian countryside. His insights into community building in rural India offer some tantalizing glimpses how India can survive the juggernaut of modernity with its soul and communities intact.

Radio evolve’s Thomas Steininger talks with Rajan Venkatesh about the impact of modernism on Indian society and his own Ghandian vision for communal development.

Our troubled world needs us. It needs integrally minded men and women who have an open spiritual heart to step up in a world that is in danger of falling apart. But are we ready, ready with our soul, heart, and mind to hold the complexity and contradictions of this world?

Until we can find unseen perspectives in our selves, we will be challenged to find them outside of ourselves. Until we can embrace the knots of bias in ourselves, we won’t be able to unlock them around us. Until we can free ourselves from the habits that keep us safe, we will not be able to liberate a group or an organization to pursue what’s outside of the known and familiar. Removing our biases and preferences is what creates more spaciousness and allows us to be more responsive. And it needs our inner evolution to create a social revolution.

Diane Musho Hamilton works globally as a mediator and as a teacher of Integral Spirituality and Zen. In Utah (USA) she established mediation programs throughout the court system. Her book Everything is Workable, a Zen approach to conflict resolution shows us a new way to show up in and for our world. In this week’s Radio evolve, Thomas Steininger speaks with Diane Hamilton about inner evolution and social revolution.

Dr. Monica Sharma worked many years for the United Nations as director of Leadership and Capacity Development. She designed and facilitated programs for whole systems transformation and leadership development throughout the world with measurable results. She established and implemented programs in 40 countries to prevent and treat HIV AIDS and pioneered the strategy for whole systems transformation to reduce maternal mortality in South Asia. Monica Sharma developed a conscious full-spectrum model which simultaneously in time solves problems, shifts systems and creates new patterns sourced from individual inner capacity and transformational leadership. In her new book she writes, like maybe no one else could do about how “Transformational leadership” works .

Thomas Steininger will talk in Radio evolve with Monica Sharma about how change agents can develop a form of leadership.

The current political moment is very challenging. Neo-authoritarian political movements are challenging the neoliberal systems that have governed the world for decades. While neoliberalism has created a global ecological, financial, social and also moral crisis, new forms of authoritarianism don’t seem to be a good answer. What is an integral perspective on our dangerous global situation? Jeff Salzman is a renowned international integral voice. He worked with his hero, Ken Wilber, in developing the integral institute in the USA, and in presenting historic seminars on the application of integral theory to business, psychology, and spirituality. His passion is, as he says “to think about the ever-arising cosmos, and helping other people do the same.” For years now, he has been doing exactly this on his US-webcast, The Daily Evolver, where he talks with his guests about “integral insights into politics and culture.”

Thomas Steininger invited Jeff Salzman to talk about integral insights on a world in crisis.

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History does not happen on its own. It never did. It was always created-created by people who cared. Barbara von Meibom, founder of the Berlin-based Communio-Institute for the Art of Leadership, joins Radio evolve to explore how we can be allies of evolution and create pathways for the future to unfold. Barbara is the cohost of the Integral European Conference, a gathering of hundreds of integral visionaries, activists, and thinkers that will take place in Hungary on May 22nd-27th at Lake Balaton. Can such gatherings make a difference? What is the significance for integrally minded people to literally come together to find new answers in this very special time that we are living in? How can Europe, in particular, find a new positive role in our evolving global culture?

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Thomas Steininger speaks with Barbara von Meibom about how integral thinking and an integral “being together” can create answers that allow us to be allies of the future.

Is the West in the midst of a spiritual identity crisis? Over forty years ago, Western seekers turned to Eastern spirituality and started the “New Age” Movement to renew our own spiritual search. This created a lot of insights and enriched Western spirituality, but Judith Miller, Ph.D., Columbia University professor of Human Development, claims that it also led Westerners to abandon their own spiritual roots. She thinks that the turn to the East has created an individual and collective split of epic proportions in the West. The message of her new book, Healing the Western Soul, is that today’s spiritual seekers with Judeo-Christian roots should rediscover their own lineage. They should discover who they are. This is a radical message in the age of pluralism, diversity, and global spiritual fusion.  How can Westerners be true to their spiritual roots and at the same time be part of the spiritual dialogue that we need more than ever in our globalized world?

Thomas Steininger talks with Judith Miller about the Western soul and its role in global culture.