Integritus Prime

Some time ago I posted about the seven levels of consciousness, by Deepak Chopra. Then I found this older article by Joanna Macy. It is an excerpt from her 1991 book, World as Lover, World as Self. Clearly, Dr. Macy was way ahead of her time.

In this article on greening the self, she talks about what Chopra calls unity consciousness, the merging of self with the universe. Dr. Macy gives examples from environmental activism, where activists see the whale or the forest as themselves. She adds that the way we define the boundaries of the self can vary; for instance the self can be the ego, the body, the family, the organization, or the world.

This relates to my earlier research on global identity, through which I showed that there is a link between having a global identity and performing actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Dr. Macy, we are moving more and more in the direction of the green self, the unified consciousness and the global identity: the self that is deeply interconnected with all life. When we see nature as self, we experience the pain that is inflicted on life, and our motivation to protect it is heightened, and translates into decisive, life-affirming action.

This transition is well underway, as evidenced by multiple social movements, and will drive humanity into a new leadership paradigm of that uplifts life instead of destroying it.

Greening the self means including nature, and the entire universe as part of the self.