What Will Unite Humanity? Decoding Symbiotic Culture DNA, Chapter 8 Part 3
Welcome to the Birthing the Symbiotic Age Book!
NEW here? — please visit the TABLE OF CONTENTS FIRST and catch up!
You are in Chapter 8, Part 3 — “What Will Unite Humanity? Decoding Symbiotic Culture DNA,” A Constellation of Virtues – A Practical Look at The True Human Superpower … A Growth Network Based on 12 Needs … A Distributed Network Infrastructure
Chapter 8 posts:
Are you trying to figure out where this is All Going? Read an overview of the Symbiotic Culture Strategy, which embodies the Transcendent through the nodes of intersection within local, grassroots-empowered community networks.
Voice-overs are now at the top of my posts for anyone who doesn’t have the time to sit and read! Also, find this chapter post and all previous posts as podcast episodes on
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NOTE: I had technical difficulties recording the voiceover — please stay tuned.
Previously, at the end of Chapter 8, Part 2
Regardless of how we source these principles and Virtues, they seem to be embedded in every human culture and in our universal longing to not only transcend the ego self as a “locus of control” but also a longing for a culture of connection and beloved community.
As we discovered, these are not just abstract ideals and prescriptions for individual morality and actualization. Once again, I see virtues as the most powerful “Transcendent Energies,” extrinsically and intrinsically part of the very structure of “reality” (the Ancient Blueprint) and the foundation for a symbiotic community.
Being consciously aware of and then applying these Virtuous patterns flowing from
spiritual and natural reality may very well usher in the next phase of human evolution.
It will allow us to turn the pyramid of worldly dominance hierarchies on its head, creating multiple, interlinking growth hierarchies, a functional community operating system from the bottom up that will allow us all to thrive.
A Constellation of Virtues – A Practical Look at the True Human Superpower
Another very concrete and practical idea emerged from the Valentine’s Day meeting.
In addition to building symbiotic networks, we began to develop a group meeting process to practice the Virtues called the Connections Gathering. We also called it the Weaver Group Gathering because it was designed to help us “weave” together personal Virtues and community principles — through family, neighborhoods, local community, and Symbiotic Networks. (You’ll read more about this in Chapter 10.)
The meeting process focused on one Virtue for each month. For example, if we agreed that January represented “integrity,” we would break into subgroups, and everyone would share how they practiced integrity in any context that month. We would then reconvene in the larger group to discuss how to “externalize” this Virtue in the larger community through community projects.
In this process, we identified certain community principles that informed our later work: charity begins at home … the Golden Rule (go for win-win solutions) … building synergy, and getting to know your neighbor, farmer, and local business owner. These were things we had been doing all along, and in the process of identifying these constructive behaviors, we codified them not as cut-and-dried commandments but as mutually agreed-upon commitments.
What we found particularly helpful was the interplay of civic and religious virtues. We intentionally chose virtues that were rated on both a secular and religious scale.
We learned a lot as we explored the nuances in the different Virtues, the ones we had heard so often, maybe even grew up with, in early religious instruction or out in civic society, yet took for granted. For example, integrity infers a sense of congruency. The opposite of integrity is disintegrity, and from there, it becomes easy to see the relationship between lack of integrity and “disintegration.”
Could it be, as historian Arnold Toynbee observed, that the apparent disintegration of our institutions has something to do with the absence of integrity? Integrity also suggests trustworthiness and truthfulness. We began to identify the sub-categories, like balance, which is also a quality of integrity—the ability to keep one’s center in times of challenge, confusion, and strife. “Honor,” too, is related to integrity because it represents doing the right thing consistently.
In a similar way, “courage” is related to strength, perseverance, acceptance, dedication, discipline, and restraint. “Respect” concerns fairness, justice, civility, cooperation, dignity, and mindfulness. “Love” encompasses the qualities of compassion and kindness, gratitude and forgiveness, humility, patience, faith, joy, and appreciation.
Can you see how Virtues are qualities that are not merely to be practiced individually but as a constellation of virtuous habits in conjunction with one another and in
the life of a community?
It’s understandable that inside a Culture of Separation, we might also view these Virtues as separate and isolated. However, when we recognize each Virtue as a fractal of the Ancient Blueprint, we can see how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When these Virtues are practiced in a “holistic” way, we create and reinforce virtuous patterns in our own personality and in society.
St. Maximus the Confessor, the 7th-century Orthodox Christian monk we’ve referred to throughout this book, described a “Virtuous Circle” where the Virtues act together in harmonious accord with one another. He believed that in order to practice any individual Virtue, we need Cosmic Love — God, the Divine, or the Transcendent — to “awaken” them within us. And yet, paradoxically, when we practice any particular Virtue, such as patience, in conjunction with others, that ACTION likewise leads us back to God.
In other words, practicing the Virtues is a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop that orders and unifies our personality - and strengthens our connection to Cosmic Love. We then naturally grow our capacity to unite our community.
The Virtues that St. Maximus referred to as “Transcendent Energies” I’ve come to recognize as “the deepest human superpower.” Consider that every human — should they choose — has access to these radiant practices that can heal our separation and “unite the Cosmos in Love,” starting with unifying our own personalities. This is truly the Tikkun Olam — healing of the world — spoken of in the Jewish tradition.
It seems as if every religion or spiritual path recognizes the relationship between these virtuous patterns and transforming our lives and world, which is why I’ve identified them as “universal patterns.”
In another example, Buddhism maintains that living in “the world” presents us with negative states of awareness such as greed, hatred, and delusion—what they call “poisons” and what I’ve referred to as “anti-virtues.” The antidotes are the Virtues of generosity, loving-kindness, and wisdom.
Speaking of Buddhism and the “constellation of Virtues,” the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, which we have been highlighting throughout this book, offers a real-life, real-world example of the Virtues made manifest in changing society for the better.
The Four Buddhist Sublime (Divine) Abodes of Compassion, Loving Kindness, Equanimity, and Joy in Others’ Joy are at the foundation of Dr. Ari's work. By abiding in these “Abodes,” we overcome not just the personal “anti-virtues” of personal greed, hatred, and delusion but also those in our families, communities, and society—and in societal structures.
When the Virtues are not practiced as a constellation of related energies, it can lead to what G.K. Chesterton called “virtue gone mad.” He saw the need to embody and practice a constellation of Virtues when he said, “The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.”
This is related to what I discussed in Chapter 6, which is the tendency, as Adam Smith called the “man in the system,” where well-intentioned people believe their cause is morally righteous and can’t wait to impose their idea on some other societal group.
This is particularly true when the Virtues fall prey to the Culture of Separation, and as we suggested earlier, the mind is called upon to do Spirit’s “job.”
Virtues can get distorted into mental constructs — “things” — and pitted against one another, so they devolve from loving practice to rigidified dogma.
When a virtue becomes absolutist dogma to be imposed on society, we get the current culture wars, where each side begins with a worthy virtue and then seeks to dominate by imposing it on everyone.
As philosopher George Santayana said, “Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.” It’s sobering to recognize how almost every toxic political system began with a virtuous impulse. Consider the French Revolution, or totalitarian Marxism — where an idea or ideal is “deified,” and what we “know” in the human heart gets cast aside.
So again, back to St. Maximus.
Can you see why he put Love at the forefront of practicing any Virtue? He also stressed the importance of working on these virtues simultaneously because they create a field of constancy and consistency that provide order, unifying and guiding our personalities.
The bottom line is that we came to see these as a “constellation” of virtues that are interactive and mutually reinforcing.
Virtues are the “interface” between heaven and earth through our concrete, intentionally beneficial actions in all our relationships—with our families, neighbors, co-workers, and throughout our organizations—until those organizations and a whole community become virtuous as well.
Again, these are universal virtues that both religionists and atheists would accept as “intrinsic” — intrinsically valid, intrinsically valuable. While Conscious Community used many different religious and secular ethical systems to source these virtues, it was the collective wisdom of our community that came up with the final list.
We also recognized that most of these virtues were intrinsic to each of us personally in that they couldn’t be imposed from the outside but needed to be realized, activated, and experienced from within. Yes, it’s possible to teach someone intellectually about virtues such as integrity or forgiveness, but the bottom line is virtues need to be experienced as something we intentionally practice in our lives. Teaching is a reminder — to put these virtues into practice.
That raises the question, can we learn to live virtuously in the same way we can teach and learn car repair?
I am reminded of the Socrates dialogue, in which a student asks him where Virtue comes from. Socrates’ response was that Virtue cannot be taught, “that Virtue comes to the virtuous by the Divine.” Socrates treats the Divine as central to the source of the
most desirable wisdom.
Most of our network believed this to be the case: there are archetypal qualities and Virtues already “within” or accessible to us, although sometimes dormant because of cultural influences. The practice is to connect with that quality and consciously bring it to life. I am reminded that the word “educate” comes from the Latin “Educare,” to bring forth. In this sense, education means bringing awareness and action to what we intrinsically know.
Practicing this “constellation of virtues” becomes what the global 12-step recovery movement calls “a new way of life.” As you will read in Chapter 10, the Virtues are most useful in both recovering our connection with the Transcendent AND recovering from the Culture of Separation.
The other reason for practicing these Virtues in concert is that collectively, they shift our view of what is truly valuable in life. I’m reminded of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Drum Major Instinct” Sermon, where he spoke about our tendency to want recognition, to be “number one,” to be the head of the pack, and to dominate.
Dr. King reiterated that Jesus spoke of a new world dawning in which the human empires of brute power and domination (Kingdom of Man) will be replaced with the heavenly reign (Kingdom of Heaven), where self-giving Love and the betterment of humanity become natural.
Dr. King said, “Keep feeling the need to be important. Keep feeling the need to be first. But I want you to be first in love. I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity. That is what I want you to do… If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.”
“You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve.
You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
While we did talk a lot in the Weaver groups, it became clear that lives don’t change when we talk about the Virtues; our world changes when we intentionally practice them. You can’t shift the entire orientation of your life from self-serving to self-giving Love just by thinking about it. That’s just a mind field …
Remember, we are immersed in a Culture of Separation that worships the mind. It’s like the joke: Sure, it works in practice, but does it work in theory?
That brings us to the question: are these Virtues something the human mind came up with, or are they an emanation of a Higher Power?
Whether one believes these virtues are divinely inspired or come from human trial and error in practicing workability, the proof is in practice.
The philosophy or theology behind them is “talk”; the “walk” is how we demonstrate these principles and virtues in our lives and relations.
Having said that, I do have my personal view, and it is this: If I act in a virtuous way, it’s not because I was taught to do so by a course on “Virtue Ethics,” from religious dogma or even secular teaching. For me, it comes from direct embodied knowing – based on my extraordinary childhood experience of the Transcendent Ground of Being, as “real” as any reality I have experienced.
For me, this knowing is “beyond belief”, and consequently beyond the mind. I would never impose this view on anyone else, although I would say that any transcendent experience – watching a baby being born or a loved one die, an awesome scene in nature, or a selfless act of love – can be a gateway to the Transcendent.
We all have access to this “Divine Hotline”, and to me it means the ongoing presence of Cosmic Love can come alive through each of us – and can radiate outward in all our interactions. And again, regardless of beliefs or theological constructs, intentionally practicing these Virtues will “bring the Cosmos together in Love.”
After I experienced the interconnected nature of reality as a child and into adulthood, I began to experience the power of love and the absolute unity of all life. When I connect with others, I have a direct experience of coming from one Source and being part of one family. There is no separate person there!
And … that is my unique experience.
If someone else comes to the same conclusion — that we are all connected, and when we benefit another, we benefit ourselves — the “how they got there” is less important than “they got there.”
We never presented any of these principles or virtues as dogma — they were not written in stone. The last thing we would want is someone launching a symbiotic network and imposing this list or these Virtues. While it’s imporant to have agreement on practicing the virtues — that’s just common sense — they are not a “constitution” to be ratified. You don’t begin your network session by standing and pledging allegiance to these virtues or principles.
Rather, they stand as a foundation, a trusted advisor in all affairs, that works best when “discovered” by a symbiotic community in dialogue. While discovering and applying these principles and virtues, we became convinced they represent an objective, unifying Ground of Being that reverberates through all successful societies and endeavors.
In this regard, it’s not the “content” of our Virtues list but rather the context — a process and methodology that builds the symbiotic culture that will support a symbiotic community.
Consistency between Virtues and practices, between internal beliefs and external expression, creates a state of coherence and integrity.
There are those who might suggest that with our communities even more polarized and divided than fifteen or twenty years ago, this couldn’t be done today.
I disagree. What we did — achieve consensus around shared Virtues in a diverse community — could be done just as easily today in any community committed to gleaning the collective wisdom of the crowd.
So, what exactly did we accomplish in identifying these Virtues?
For one thing, we articulated the foundation we had already built for our Conscious Community Network. We identified the qualities that came into play as we shifted our emphasis from competition to collaboration and built our symbiotic community.
Once again, read the list of virtuous qualities in Chapter 8, one at a time. How do they make you feel? What do they invoke in you? Do you feel inspired? Encouraged?
Secondly, by immersing ourselves in discovering, identifying, and discussing these virtues, we began to embody them. Practicing Love, Integrity, Courage, Service, and Respect goes a long way toward re-building the bonds of community that have become fragmented by our materialistic way of life.
In addition to the literal “practice” we did as part of the Weavers Group, focusing on one quality per month, these qualities silently informed our individual actions and led us to future community projects. In this sense, the process of bringing these principles and Virtues forth was as important as the product — the principles and Virtues themselves. Somehow, we were able to affirm unity and diversity, and reach consensus without domination.
Bottom line, these universal principles and virtues, grounded in a “transcendent idea,” gave us a way to transcend the “Tower of Babble,” to “trance-end” the Culture of Separation, and gave us a common way to speak about the spiritual life across the divides of religion and politics.
After identifying a common purpose, guiding principles, and radiant virtues, the next step was application. How exactly do we apply these principles and virtues to fulfill our purpose?
A Growth Network Based on 12 Needs
The entire community meeting process generated even greater openness and trust. Instead of seemingly “opposing” viewpoints in conflict, we were able to use these viewpoints to gain a more holistic perspective. Having created our foundation with a common purpose and identified guiding community principles and virtues that emanate from this purpose, it was now time to turn “inside out” and use these Virtues to serve the larger community.
How specifically?
Nearly a half-century earlier, as I discussed in Section 1, Sarvodaya identified ten common needs of their Sri Lankan villages. You may remember that in the early Sarvodaya villages, they led community conversations around identifying what became their ten basic community needs. What’s amazing is how those early experiments drilled down, with local community members, to identify hundreds of sub-needs within the ten they identified.
Why is this important?
Having what I call a community “functional” context, focusing on common community functional needs rather than a divisive political, economic, or religious context, makes all the difference when you are trying to create an ongoing basis for community cooperation.
As you will see in Section 3, “Activation,” being able to identify the cultural landmines that come from being “captured” by various political, religious, or cultural viewpoints will make all the difference to your own community's success.
We found some shared common needs between a “developing” country and an “overdeveloped” nation.
Sarvodaya’s Ten Basic Needs
Clean environment
Adequate supply of water
Clothing
Nutritious food
Shelter
Health care
Communication
Fuel and lighting (energy)
Access to education
Cultural and spiritual performance
Here are the 12 Common Needs we came up with for our Northern Nevada community:
Local Economy
Clean & Healthy Natural Environment
Community Peace & Safety
Local Food & Water
Neighbor Helping Neighbor
Community Empowerment of those on the “margins”
Local Energy
Arts & Culture
Housing
Family and Community Health & Wellness
Education/Mentoring
Spirituality in Service
“Building the road” – purposefully practicing the principles and virtues to serve the community's needs—required a unique infrastructure and “scaffolding” that we had already begun to develop through our buy local network and was now emerging as we created our local food network.
A Distributed Network Infrastructure
A blueprint is key in designing a building—but it’s not the building. It’s a pattern, template, and plan that calls forth infrastructure and scaffolding to help a community collaborate, coordinate, and communicate.
By the time we met on Valentine’s Day 2006, we had already created two “symbiotic networks,” although we didn’t yet call them that. In Chapter 7, we described our process, in which one individual—me or others—was able to reach out to key “catalytic connectors,” who, in turn, activated their own siloed communities to come together for a singular purpose.
To apply shared community principles and virtues to address common needs, we needed to understand the nature of symbiotic networks more deeply.
We have come to view these symbiotic networks as “network-centric” organizations. (More about this in section 3). Instead of very few people (either a CEO, executive director/management team, religious or political leader) having the power to direct the organization from the “top,” a networked organization distributes leadership throughout the network.
This happens through a horizontal, hub-based, multi-nodal network of connector and super-connector leaders who do their work connecting people and organizations every day throughout the community, mostly invisibly.
By connecting people, organizations, and businesses, social and economic infrastructure is created in the community that didn’t exist before.
Every new link creates new information flow between organizations and networks. Information flow is vital for generating social and economic innovations, especially between businesses and groups that have not connected before.
If we stay in our own network “bubbles” or “silos” (this applies to every sector: social, business, religious, political, etc.), we stagnate because we’re exposed to the same information over and over.
You’ll remember from Chapter 7 our discussion of “weak ties” and how linking otherwise unrelated local networks can accelerate the flow of “good” and liberate undiscovered “frozen assets” that exist in communities because of the Culture of Separation.
By connecting with others who may be different in some way, participants break down barriers to the community. The inner barriers to the community are found within us, so there is great healing in the process. And there is also the nurturing of a cohesive community by wiring the community together — through simple acts of love and service ― heart-to-heart and group-to-group.
It turns out that activating a network like this doesn’t take much time, nor does it require money or paid staff, and can happen within three months or so.
In the three years since we first launched what would become the Conscious Community Network, we had created a “non-institution” that held more positive influence than any individual business or organization in our community, and we had done it without force, without major conflict, and without being “against” anything.
Our symbiotic network highlighted and connected the “good” that was already happening, and through our “multi-nodal” networks, we connected and multiplied that good.
As with Sarvodaya, we built both internal and external resources. That spirit of goodness and goodwill allowed us to cooperate and collaborate above and beyond our differences. We enjoyed working together. We had fun. Through this process, the phrase “Connecting the Good” came to express our purpose.
Within a network like this, political distinctions like “collectivism” and “individuality” shifted from dueling dualities to “dynamic duo dance partners.” There was no “collectivism” imposed from the top to control individual behavior. Rather, conscious and self-empowered individuals chose to act together for collective benefit. More and more, the “personal ideal” became the “community real deal.”
I am reminded of a quote of Dr. Martin Luther King’s that captures the essence of network-centric structures:
“In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality.”
Our symbiotic networks became the living expressions of this “inescapable network of mutuality” flowing from the “interrelated structure of reality.” It’s a down-to-earth way the Transcendent can become Immanent, how we can bring Heaven to Earth. Maybe Heaven was already present, but now, it felt as if was “breaking through", by a deepening relationship with an underlying, always present reality.
It is founded in our common destiny to thrive in a community that honors individual expression in the context of common good — and uncommon goodness. This is the common ground we used then and can use now to bring the disparate sections of our human community together for a higher purpose.
Find out how we continued to develop a Unifying Worldview, the “Glue,” to guide our continuing actions in the NEXT POST — Chapter 8, Part 4: What Will Unite Humanity? — Decoding Symbiotic Culture DNA
Symbiotic Culture DNA: Five Elements of a Unifying Worldview … Fractal Community Empowerment
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A beautiful piece of writing that inspires hope whilst showing how it is truly possible to bring *intentional community* to life. 🙏🏽🎉