Key Elements of Global Consciousness
Global Consciousness: Frameworks for a Flourishing World
Judi Neal, Julia Storberg-Walker, Ina Gjikondi, Chris Laszlo
Abstract
Global consciousness is emerging as a new, interdisciplinary field of study and practice. This chapter provides an initial attempt at defining the field of global consciousness from an academic perspective. We then describe the quantum paradigm that underlies and supports the emergence of this new field, along with its implications for leaders. Two global consciousness initiatives at George Washington University are described as examples of programs and practices.
Introduction
Around 2017, a sense of calling emerged in each of the four authors of this chapter. It also has been emerging in many people around the world in the last decade or so. We are experiencing a calling to understand and to elevate the field of global consciousness. By “field” we mean “an academic and professional field of study and practice.” But we also are referring to the energetic or quantum field of global consciousness. As academics and practitioners, we believe in the importance of global consciousness, and we are designing and implementing quality research, pedagogy and leadership development programs that are contributing to a creative future for a flourishing world. We believe intention, attention, and collective action contribute to a positive shift in global consciousness.
There are many paths to elevating global consciousness including collective efforts towards sustainability and regeneration, global peace movements, interfaith dialogue, equitable global economics, social justice, collective meditation, and education. In this chapter we focus on higher education because higher education prepares the leaders of the future, whether in business, government, science, or healthcare, and it is these leaders that will influence and inspire others towards greater wholeness and flourishing. Education is one of the most important leverage points for shifting humanity from a consciousness of separation to a consciousness of oneness (Tsao & Laszlo 2019).
There are four sections to this chapter. First, we begin by describing three aspects of global consciousness. Second, we provide an example of a doctoral program at George Washington University that is designed to support the elevation of global consciousness in future researchers, faculty, and practitioners. Third, we describe a pedagogical approach called “e-co listening” – a practice which helps explore the transitional unfoldment of six key capacities: spaciousness, perception, imagination, inspiration, intuition, and creativity. The final section of this chapter discusses the ways in which the quantum paradigm provides a new model for leadership.
1. Three Key Aspects of Global Consciousness
As scholars and practitioners, we live in a global, interconnected world. The world needs leaders who are capable of thinking and acting with global awareness and a commitment to the greater good. Yet there are few resources available to support the development of globally conscious leaders in academia or in corporate leadership development. There are no university courses or programs on global consciousness, and it is not considered a field of study in academia, or as a field of practice in organizations.
We, along with several colleagues, have created the Global Consciousness Institute (GCI) as a way of supporting thought leaders and change makers to elevate humanity to a higher level of consciousness in turbulent and complex times. Our commitment is towards greater cooperation, visionary leadership, prosperity, happiness, equity, peace and wellbeing for all. Our aim is to use applied research to design and implement programs and courses that will support the development of globally conscious leaders.
We define global consciousness in three different ways (individual, collective, and leadership development), underpinned by two foundations (a new ontology/epistemology, and a shared set of assumptions). Each of these five aspects invites different but complimentary forms of scholarship and programmatic actions. See Figure 1.
Global Consciousness as an Individual Stage of Development
Global Consciousness can reside in an individual as a stage of human development beyond ego-centric and tribal-centric. Based on practices of connectedness, the individual feels a sense of deep connection, interdependence, and oneness to humanity and the planet. This individual aspect of global consciousness is supported and elevated by a new ontology and epistemology that has emerged from an integration of the new sciences – particularly quantum science – and living wisdom traditions. These epistemologies view the universe as interconnected energies. Consciousness is primary, i.e. consciousness is the source of creation and action.
There are countless theories of the stages of human development, and of the development of levels of consciousness. In the theories of interest to our efforts, the highest level of consciousness goes by names such as global consciousness, oneness consciousness, or non-dual consciousness. In these theories, there is usually a bifurcation point where a quantum shift in self-identity occurs. Here are some examples of that point of transformation:
- “Ego-consciousness to eco-consciousness.” Scharmer and Kaufer (2013)
- “Me to we.” Kaufmann (2016)
- “Consciousness of separation to consciousness of connectedness” Tsao and Laszlo (2019)
- “Tier 1 to tier 2” in spiral dynamics, Beck & Cowan (1996)
Global Consciousness is a collective phenomenon whereby the human race perceives itself as a whole (one humanity, one human race), and commits to the greater good to solve global challenges such as climate change, world peace, social justice, and well-being for everyone. There are a shared set of assumptions that support this collective phenomenon: We are spirit-infused beings in a world that is alive with meaning. We are cooperative, compassionate and caring as an essential part of the nature of being human. We seek to flourish. We are an integral part of nature.
There have been occasional examples of the experience of global consciousness as a collective phenomenon. New Year’s Eve 2000 is one example. This was a time when the industrialized world was concerned about the negative potential of Y2K on the computer-centric world. But for a 24-hour period, television viewers could see the new year roll in, country by country around the world. It was as if, for just a moment, all of humanity was celebrating the start of a new year, a new century, and a new millennium. And they were also celebrating the fact that computers and the internet kept working and that it wasn’t the “end of the world.”
One year later, on September 11th, the whole world was shocked by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. While a small group actually celebrated these attacks, the majority of the world was in mourning at these shocking acts of terrorism. People joined together in prayer, in a commitment to doing work that was more meaningful, and to being more loving. This feeling of connectedness did not last long, but what is remarkable is that it existed at all.
Currently, we are in the midst of a global pandemic and a planetary climate crisis. Everyone is impacted and it will take small and large actions from each and every person to transform these shared crises into a world that works better for all.
Several models of global consciousness are emerging that provide non-hierarchical methods of people coming together to address issues that face humanity. Political movements such as the Occupy Movement, Arab Spring, March for Our Lives, School Strikes for Climate, Extinction Rebellion and many others are all worth studying for their ability to create positive transformation on the individual and collective levels. There are also contemplative groups from around the world using spiritual practices to help raise collective consciousness. Mindfulness training in North America and other parts of the globe has spread throughout the corporate world and universities. The internet has erased boundaries between countries and cultures, especially for young people.
Global Consciousness as an Aspect of Leadership Development
Global Consciousness is an aspect of leadership development where people are trained in wisdom practices and the integration of non-dual ways of knowing. The goal is to develop a critical mass of leaders who are able to embrace global oneness while celebrating a diversity of cultures and voices.
In the past in business, “global consciousness” or “global mindset” has been framed as cross-cultural sensitivity, which is cognitive and behavioral based. Fry and Egel (2019) take an expanded view of global leadership in a complex environment which they call “Being-centered leadership.” They argue that a commitment to the spiritual journey is essential for developing the kind of global mindset that recognizes the dignity and commonality of the human experience and the ability to reconcile and transcend apparent opposites.
Leadership development programs, such as Tsao and Laszlo’s (2019) Quantum Leadership program, are being developed that provide experiences, wisdom, practices, models and guidance to help leaders move to higher levels of consciousness in a way that positively impacts their personal and professional lives, their organizations, humanity, and the planet. It would be valuable to document these programs and to learn more about best practices and their impacts.
We are committed to studying global consciousness at these three levels – individual, collective, and leadership development – and to sharing what we learn from our applied research and best practices as widely as possible.
2. The Quantum Paradigm and its Implications of How Leaders Think and Act
This section addresses the following question: how might the emerging quantum paradigm influence management thought and behavior? Quantum-as-metaphor suggests that instead of thinking of ourselves as separate and discrete from one another, we should see ourselves as part of an emergent, interdependent, and dynamically coherent whole. Quantum-as-actuality goes beyond the metaphor to offer a more literal interpretation of quantum science that fundamentally re-conceptualizes what it means to be human and the nature of the world. We aim to show that such a transformation in consciousness is key to accelerating prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors needed for meaningful solutions to wicked problems.
Philosophers of science such as Thomas Kuhn recognize that science can have a huge and often hidden influence on our thinking and acting (Kuhn, 2012). In disciplines as diverse as quantum physics, quantum biology, consciousness research, epigenetics, and neuroscience, a new scientific paradigm is emerging, with consequential implications for how managers see and act in the world. At the heart of the new scientific paradigm, which we refer to here as the quantum paradigm, is quantum physics, both because it deals with the most fundamental aspects of how the universe behaves and because its findings are so revolutionary.
We aim to show that a transformation in consciousness, at the level of the paradigmatic assumptions held by managers about the nature of reality, is key to accelerating the kind of prosocial and pro-environmental behavior needed to address climate change, social inequity, and other wicked problems facing humankind. We go beyond the quantum metaphor to amore literal interpretation of quantum science that fundamentally re-conceptualizes what it means to be human and the nature of reality. Reframing reality can help leaders, and the various systems of which they are a part, transition to a new science-based consciousness—long intuited by indigenous and nonwestern spiritual leaders—of an interconnected and dynamically coherent world, in which humans collaboratively and purposefully contribute to flourishing social and ecological systems.
Quantum-as-metaphor:
Quantum science as metaphor suggests that instead of thinking of ourselves as separate and discreet from one another and from nature, we should see ourselves as part of one interconnected whole. In the language of quantum physics, we are instantly and everywhere connected to each other and the world. Transposing the findings of quantum physics to the meso and macro domains, we are encouraged to see living systems are dynamically interdependent. Evolution is now seen as a finely tuned emergent process with an extraordinarily high level of dynamic coherence between species and their environments. Viewed through a quantum lens, ecologies can be seen as interconnected wholes. Shifting one element, such as a species or an evolutionary dynamic, affects the whole in ways that cannot be predicted. Uncertainty about future states is characteristic, and rapid state changes are possible when tipping points are reached. Quantum-as-metaphor is akin to the unified (or Oneness) views of traditional societies such as those in ancient India and China, the idea behind the Lakota phrase “All my relations”, or the African notion of Ubuntu: I am because we/you are.
Quantum-as-actuality:
Here human beings, social systems, and the universe itself manifest as actual quantum phenomena. At each level (micro, meso, and macro; individual, organizational, and system) there is only potentiality, which itself collapses into manifest reality through entangled, acausal, and nonlocal relationships between the observer and the observed. This is not to deny that living organisms have physical properties as individuals, but it does argue that our bodies and minds are entangled with those of others and the environment. We exist only in relationship to others and the world. Thus agency is not as something one has. Itis co-created in relationships. Human beings and social phenomena are both emergent effects of practices embedded in a wider context, not just figuratively, but in a constitutive sense.
Consciousness itself becomes a macroscopic quantum phenomenon. Matter is intrinsically minded and interconnected with its environment. We are connected and united by actual energy and a shared consciousness that exists outside our brains. The ability of some people to “tune into” the nature of quantum reality and to experience its connectedness, wholeness, and coherence offers a glimpse into future abilities that are not realized today only because our beliefs in them are so limited by the ontologies and epistemologies of classical science.
Quantum-as-actuality does not only affect our conceptualization of what it means to be human and the physical world we live in. It also helps us re-think the nature of social systems. “What social structures actually are, physically, are superpositions of shared mental states—social wave functions.” (Wendt, 2015: 258). Social systems can thus be recast as potentialities rather than determinate entities. Agents and their social systems are “mutually constitutive,” not in the sense of causal interaction, but rather as a non-local, acausal, synchronic state (or better yet, a dynamic) from which both are emergent. “Conceptualized in quantum terms… the state [as a social system] is a wave function shared non-locally across both time and space by millions of people, but as such it is only a potential reality, not an actual one,” says Wendt. “As a practice, in turn, the state is an actual but local phenomenon, materializing momentarily as people collapse its wave function in their daily affairs such as voting, paying taxes, and going to war, and then disappearing again.” (268)
Implications for leaders:
A quantum science re-conception of what it means to be human and the nature of the world can help lift humanity into a new era of creativity and collaboration. The intentions and character of leaders become suddenly vital to shaping social outcomes, compared to the classical science view of people and society as just machines with limited free will. Seen through a quantum lens, social systems manifest locally through concrete practices in particular contexts. Such a quantum framing decreases our sense of dependence on the past, increases the role of free will, and spotlights mindfulness as a co-creative participatory act. Leaders who embody in mind, heart, and spirit the quantum paradigm choose to do good because that is who they are, or more precisely because that is who they are becoming. Only when a threshold number of such leaders is reached will there be sufficient collective influence to bring about meaningful solutions to wicked problems.
3. Reforming Higher Education for Global Flourishing
This section describes the redesign of a doctoral level leadership course. The revised course creates the potential in students to shift from cause and effect/dualistic thinking to integrative thinking and emergence; and from a view of extraction/exploitation to a view of collaboration and interdependence. This means that the course offers the potential to move from an ‘unsustainable’ to a ‘sustainable’ mindset (Rimanoczy, 2020). We call this change the Quantum shift, which signifies a re-orientation to self and the cosmos anchored in interdependency and entanglement.
Two sources inspired the creation of the revised curriculum: Rimanoczy’s (2020) Big Bang Being: Developing the Sustainability Mindset, and Tsao and Laszlo’s (2019) Quantum Leadership: A New Consciousness in Business. The former, (combined with online professional development from the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) Working Group on Sustainability Mindset) provided the sustainability mindset conceptual framework and some of the principles undergirding the course. The latter provided interdisciplinary research justification for a new leadership model with the capability to drive the shift from a consciousness of separateness to a consciousness of connectedness. Tsao and Laszlo (2019) was selected as one of the required textbooks in the course due to its evidence-based leadership model and its deep, trans-disciplinary synthesis of philosophical, scientific, and human-centered ideas relating to leadership for planetary flourishing. In addition, the book’s focus on developing a consciousness of connectedness through contemplative practices mirrored our understanding of neuroscience, as well as our beliefs about contemplative practice as a gateway to deeper consciousness.
The Quantum shift signifies a re-orientation to self and the cosmos anchored in a new relationship of interdependency and entanglement. The Quantum shift means that one is accessing/touching/being infused by the Quantum field. The Quantum field exposes the limitations of cognition, rationality, mechanistic processes and metaphors, and binary thinking. Consequently, acknowledging the reality of the Quantum field fundamentally challenges the very foundations of higher education and research. It is clear that contemporary higher education typically operates from a reductionist, cause and effect paradigm for teaching, research, and service. Experiencing the shift can change all that. The Quantum field infuses all facets of teaching and learning—including formal and informal curricular design processes, to delivering content, to facilitating activities, etc.—ALL of these elements of teaching and learning are fundamentally changed.
As thus described, the Quantum shift is directly connected to many of the key ideas of the sustainability mindset, including the four sustainability mindset content areas 1) ecological worldview; 2) systems perspective; 3) emotional intelligence; and 4) spiritual intelligence (Rimanoczy, 2020). The Quantum shift is connected to the area of ecological worldview by calling for the need to relate to nature differently (e.g., ‘my contribution’). The shift is connected to the area of systems perspective’s both/and thinking through a non-dual understanding of the unity of the cosmos. The shift is connected to the area of emotional intelligence through practices of reflection and the development of self-awareness. And finally, the shift is connected to the area of spiritual intelligence through purpose, mindfulness, and unity with nature.
The time for fostering the Quantum shift is now, and we need more people teaching and learning about sustainability/planetary flourishing than ever before. It is even more important to deeply understand what students and instructors bring into the classroom because teaching and learning about leading for sustainability/planetary flourishing can fundamentally challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about the role of higher education in society and how doctoral classrooms should attend to only the neck up—e.g., intellect only. Consequently, a more substantive understanding of hopes, fears, aspirations, goals/purpose, and level of openness to new ideas is needed. With this understanding, the alchemy of transformative learning and teaching has a greater potential for impacting both students and teachers.
4. Entering the Field of Global Consciousness through e-Co Listening: An Encounter of the Nature of Being
This section will focus on one practice within the e-Co Leadership Coaching training pedagogy at George Washington University. This pedagogy is grounded in new materialism (Barad, 2007; Rosiek et al., 2019), eco-phenomenology (Abram,1997; Brown & Toadvine, 2003) classical pragmatism (Dewey,1938) and native science (Cajete, 2000). The weaving of these four worldviews, brings forth a practical field-based approach known as Goethean science (Seamon, & Zajonc, 1998), which embodies an ‘ethico-onto-epistemology’ of direct experience and aesthetic engagement that seeks to ‘trans-form’. “Form is a moving, a becoming, a passing away. The study of form is the study of transformation. The study of metamorphosis is the key to all the signs of nature” (Goethe, 1806 in Wahl, 2005). The specific practice of transformation employed in the e-Co Leadership Coaching is named as “e-Co Listening”, an expanding and connecting of our own listening, which helps explore the transitional unfoldment of six key capacities: spaciousness, perception, imagination, inspiration, intuition, and creativity (adapted from Hoffmann, 2007; Merleau-Ponty et al., 1968). This practice is one way to enter the global consciousness field, to get to know it, to experience it, and to call it forth through the engagement of senses and in conversation with the living plant world. Participants in the program are invited to witness their direct knowing through nature observation as a way of opening up the capacity for deeply feeling and understanding the world.
Why does this matter?
We need more pluralistic approaches in higher education and in leadership, as described in the previous section of this chapter. Several trends among scholars suggest that leadership development is becoming paradigmatically plural (Carroll & Smolović Jones, 2017) and that a growing need exists to embrace more complex, chaotic and dynamic approaches (Sutherland, 2012) “which cannot be fully understood solely by reference to scientific forms of logic sense-making….” (Ladkin and Taylor, 2010, p. 235). The e-Co Leadership Coaching program is a response to these needs employing approaches that open up the direct intuitive perception as a form of knowing, such as the Goethean nature observation way.
Through this process, which is reflected in the “e-Co Listening Practice”, we enter the field of Being through nature (Hoffman, 2007) stepping into the field of awareness (Mearlau-Ponty et al., 1968) and engaging in an ‘aesthetic dialogue’™. By turning the attention to nature as a direct encounter, for example being in the presence of a dandelion plant, we enter the conversation through an outer dialogue, or through an attraction, a salient feature. Nature acts as a shortcut, as a teacher which nurtures and facilitates our shift in the space. This opening can be explained through aesthetics, which brings forth the appearance of the visual field (Merleau-Ponty et al., 1968) perceived through our senses. It is through this dimension that the invisible or the field of Being opens up (Merleau-Ponty et al., 1968). There can be no sense of an invisible meaningful dimension of the world, fully articulated in language, without the primary appearance of a visual field (Merleau-Ponty et al., 1968). Therefore, aesthetics opens up the field of Being. For example, one’s hand touching one’s other hand, means the body is an objective existence and it is also subjectively experienced (Merleau-Ponty et al., 1968). So, I am both sensing and being sensed. In other ways “we rather feel the things with our eyes and the gaze itself envelops them, clothes them with its own flesh” (Baldwin, 2003, p. 249). This circularity does not produce identity but instead an opening and the possibility of a meaningful life (Bazzano, 2020).
Although Goethe never really captured this process in steps, the essence has been conceptualized and interpreted in various forms. Hoffman (2007) explains it by naming 5 steps: 1) First Impression, 2) Sensory Information, 3) Exact Sensorial Imagination: 4) Inspiration, and 5) Intuition. These steps are adopted into a micro-phenomenological (Petitmengin et al., 2019) inquiry that reflect a moment-to-moment “e-Co Listening” practice to include: “Spaciousness: What is my question, my intention, the inquiry? Perception: What gets my attention? What’s the salient feature? Imagination: How do I name what I see and sense? Inspiration: If I connect back to the inquiry and my question, what do I see and sense now? Intuition: What’s the new insight? Creativity: What’s possible from here? What’s moving?” Participants in the program use this process in two ways: 1) with their clients to open up the inquiry; and 2) with a living plant to open up their own inquiry and knowing.
This approach invites the possibility of a new organ of perception and observation, or a new apparatus of observation (Barad, 2007), supporting the coach or the leader to develop the whole self. It’s in this presence and movement where we get to see with new eyes and generate the new knowledge in our inner system to be expressed in the outer system by way of Being. It is through this work that we are able to speak to coaching in a more systemic way, a way that we can map how transformation may happen, and a way of being which holds reverence and recognizes agency for all forms of life. This is one way to enter the field of global consciousness and mobilize towards a more meaningful and flourishing life.
Conclusion
The fields of higher education, leadership development, and organizational development have been focused on the mechanistic and deterministic worldviews of the Newtonian past. Those views no longer serve humanity in the current complex and unpredictable environment. In order to face the wicked problems of our current times, we need new ways of thinking and being (Toomey & Neal, 2021). Beyond that, we need to prepare current and future leaders to be able to use their full potential – body, mind and spirit – in service of a co-created world that works for all. And by “all” we share the meaning of Native Americans when they speak of “All my relations.”
This chapter has offered the first steps of a roadmap to elevating global consciousness, beginning with higher education and with leadership and organizational development practices based on a quantum view of reality. We are a part of an emerging movement towards the development of this new field of study and practice, and are energized as we discover more and more like-minded and like-hearted people and organizations who are committed to supporting creative futures for a flourishing world.
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