Centre for Change - Upcoming Seminars

THE RECENT SEMINAR

A substantially new manner of thinking

By Dr Michael Ellis

"If humankind is to survive there has to be a substantially new manner of thinking"

Albert Einstein

We currently live in very dangerous times. There is not only vast inequity between the developed and developing world -- there is also a general poverty of spirit. We are suffering severe environmental degradation and the irreversible destruction of living and non living resources and a massive extinction of biodiversity.

In our Post Modernistic world, things are changing and there is a marked feeling of gloom and doom post September 11th.The world is governed more and more by economic rationalism and the military machine.

THE LOSS OF VALUES AND LOSS OF DREAMS

In our media there is sensationalism in the newspapers and there is no integration of news or proper analysis as news tends to serve political purposes and is therefore politically biased. There is no public voice. Even in Universities there seems to be no integration between different specialities and information is narrowly focussed.

It is a fragmented schizophrenic society.

Five weeks ago the keepers of the doomsday clock, sighting worries over lagging armament efforts for security of existing stockpiles and terrorism advanced the hands nearer to the midnight hour.

The Centre For Change advocates new ways of thinking, acting and being, placing priority on the interconnectedness of all life. This realisation means that any loss of life affects us as the ripples are bound to affect the whole family of human kind. In this paradigm, suffering and loss of life diminishes us as the collective human psyche.

THE RATIONAL, IRRATIONAL AND SUPRARATIONAL

In our society people express themselves in rational, irrational or supra-rational ways. Generally the mass of people frown on the irrational and the supra-rational. The aim of the Centre for Change is to find those group of people who are willing to be visionary enough to stand up and be counted and affect positive change in their environment by linking through the common ground. This is the new turn of the spiral and emphasises wholistic and new ways of thinking and being.

Our politicians are power crazy. The political mood of the world is conflict and confrontation. Problems are analysed to the nth degree with weighty thoughts. But despite our rationalism and technology our lives as human beings are controlled mainly by the emotions of the lower and mid brains creating a global crisis of greed, exploitation, anger and stupidity ,which the Buddha called the three poisons.

Governments are maintaining economic growth at any cost and there is vast inequity in the world where millions and millions live in poverty and illness and others in comparatively excess wealth and material benefit. In our Western society we need to be informed as to the truth of what is actually occurring and we need a new awareness and new consciousness or spirituality which understands how everything maintains itself at the expense of everything else. This new paradigm is based on cooperation and openness.

There are huge changes occurring in our global society. At the recent World Economic Forum in February 2002, the scientists predicted a grim future replete with unprecedented biological threats, global warming, and the possible takeover of humans by robots. The Quantum Revolution which has given rise to the biogenetic engineering and the computer could also create a two tiered world with an artificially created genetic super race ruling over the masses somewhat like the scenario envisaged in Brave New World.
We also have to realise that, as David Suzuki has said, we have taken over 40% of the major biological imprint on the planet which can be a recipe for species extinction.

OUR FUTURE GENERATIONS

It's no wonder our young people are angry. Their lives are changing, but they feel there is no future as they feel there is nothing left. There are no values to live by. There is nothing stable, congruent or certain. Our young people nowadays grow up so quickly due to the influence of the media, particularly television. Parental care is lost as parents go out to work under the increasingly stressful working environment.

The conservative values once upheld by religion, are gone. People do not believe in institutions which dis-empower them. As Erickson, the psychologist has said, it is the political and theocratic elite which take advantage of the masses through manipulating their infantile desires.

THE CENTRE FOR CHANGE

We need to give people hope for a sustainable and positive future.
We need mentoring for our young people
We need to explain there is a common ground and that faith and truth matter and that science is not the only raison d'etre in the world
We need to understand the power of the mind to create its own reality
We need to understand that there is a truth within the depths of ourself which is congruent and which joins us in a way which expresses our diverse but unified humanity
Ralston Saul, Erickson, Einstein, Jung, and more recently Vacklav Havel have all expressed this way of thinking
Vacklav Havel , President of Czechoslovakia has said "if humanity is to survive, we need a massive change in consciousness"

Albert Einstein wrote

'A human being is part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences in himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.'

We have to move away from the feudalism of our modern society in which people are disempowered by the system and by the nature of the institution . People are losing there dreams and yet this Millennium has been called the Millennium of the Mind. The Centre For Change aims to place value in an absolute sense on human potential. This is essential in a world which appears to be biologically out of control.

Our sciences whether they be ecological, physical, medical, philosophical are out of control because they are overspecialized as scholasticsm was in the Middle Ages when they tried to count how many angels stand on the head of a needle. We have to stop compartmentalizing everything just as the government thinks in terms of economic rationalism and collateral damage rather than what it is to be a human being. Our society is very rational and left brained. We need to become whole brained, compassionate with an understanding of a total view and fight against the establishment which is compartmentalized, rigid and narrow and has no conception of dreams, ideals, and what it is to be a human being.

The aim of the Centre For Change is to enhance the whole brained complete human being approach to ourselves, to our society and to life in general so that we can fight against this injustice and poverty of spirit around us in order that we may create a better world.