The Coming Interspiritual--Archive Edition

opportunities for creating community and exploring new expressions of coming together as collectives.

Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth, has written that “The technology we need most badly is the technology of community – the knowledge of how to cooperate to get things done. Our sense of community is in disrepair.” Interspiritual education must include opportunities to create community and explore new ways to come together as collectives. These opportunities provide an essential laboratory in which to learn and practice “the technology of community:” to learn to listen deeply with openness rather than defensiveness; to learn how to respectfully hold and resolve differences and interpersonal conflicts; to do our own deep shadow work to reclaim projections that keep us from being present with the fullness of our creativity and gifts; to practice the skills of leadership, empowerment, and creative synergy.

Vietnamese Buddhist meditation teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has said that the Buddha of our time is the sangha (spiritual community) – that the “enlightened messiah who has come to save humanity today is not a person but a collective awakening …” (Arjuna Ardagh, Leap Before You Look). Eckhart Tolle makes the same point in A New Earth: As the new consciousness emerges, some people will feel called upon to form groups that reflect enlightened consciousness. These groups will not be collective egos. … Even if the members that make up these groups are not totally free of ego yet, there will be enough awareness in them to recognize the ego in themselves and others as soon as it appears. … Dissolving the human ego by bringing it into the light of awareness … will be one of the main purposes of these groups … Just as egoic collectives pull you into unconsciousness and suffering, the enlightened collective can be a vortex for consciousness that will accelerate the planetary shift.

The work of creating authentic community is deeply challenging. As Tolle points out, it involves a commitment to compassionately but clearly recognize and acknowledge the ego, in all its overt and subtle manifestations and disguises.

Genuine community cannot Rabbi David Ingber presents an emerge if we deny the integral perspective on Judaism shadow in ourselves and one another, or try to escape the darkness of our egoic consciousness by projecting it onto others or by covering it over with a layer of spiritually-tinged artificial light. Only the true light of compassionate awareness, cultivated through deep inner practice, can shine through and dispel the illusions of separation and fear that form the core of egoic