At a critical time—a time of crisis and unsustainability—change is not linear but abrupt. We live in a critical time. The system we have created either breaks down to chaos, or breaks through to a new order. The breakthrough will not come from above, it will not occur at the center, and it will not be driven by money and power. It will come at the grassroots, at the creative periphery, and it will be motivated by the divine spark present in the heart and mind of every human being.

The epochal task today is to rekindle the divine spark in our heart and mind: to revitalize our recognition of who we are, and how we relate to each other, to the earth, and to the cosmos. We are not material beings in a material universe. We do have a material body, but we also have an immaterial consciousness in an information-penetrated universe. Our body is connected—“entangled”—with all bodies from atoms to galaxies, and our consciousness is one with the cosmic consciousness that pervades the world. Our crises and instabilities arose because we have refused to recognize this timeless insight and pursued our selfish interests in the belief that we are separate beings in a strange, uncaring and potentially hostile universe.

The time has come to awaken to the deeper knowledge that has always been present in human consciousness: the knowledge that with our mind and consciousness we transcend space and time and connect with the deeper reality that Plato said lies beyond the world of our senses. This knowledge is that we are one in the deep dimension physicist David Bohm called the implicate order and the Hindu rishis called the Akasha, the fifth and deepest element of the universe.

Every great spiritual system, every religion, all traditional cultures and sensitive individuals have known that they are fundamentally one with life in the cosmos. Animals and other living beings did not and do not consciously know this oneness, but they act on it: they do not make the fateful mistake of separating their own being from other things and from nature. Only modern-day humans suffer from the illusion that there is no world beyond their senses, no mind beyond their brain, and no life beyond their lifetime. It is time to divest ourselves from this illusion and resume the ascent of the noblest facet of our spirit toward truth, justice, and beauty.

In a period of apparent calm and stability it would take centuries if not millennia to overcome the illusion of separateness and recover the deep insight of our mind and spirit. But at a time of critical instability a shift even of this fundamental dimension can occur rapidly. We have entered a condition of chaos, and chaos is both a prelude to disaster and the key to the creative advance to novelty. This is our chance. If the necessary shift does not happen within the present critical epoch it will not, for it cannot, happen at all; the window of time is finite and it is measured in years. Fortunately, while it is open it offers nearly unlimited possibilities for change and transformation. In a period of “bifurcation” our world either breaks down, or breaks through. We can be the factor that makes the difference: the butterfly that flaps its wings and creates the climate of thought, feeling and motivation that enables the humankind to transcend its temporary aberration of consciousness and return to the realization of its fundamental oneness. Never has it been so true as today that we either hang together, or we hang separately.

The Fuji Declaration can be a crucial climate-changing butterfly. It tells us to restore the divine spark in our spirit and bring forth the innate love, compassion, wisdom, and joy to live a flourishing life. It declares that the time has come for us to awaken the divine spark in our heart and mind and, rediscovering our connections to nature and to the cosmos, re-align our life toward oneness and harmony. The sciences of life support this formerly esoteric insight. Just as the myriad cells and diverse organs of our body are interconnected and work together in harmony to sustain our life, so each and every one of us is an intrinsic part of the larger symphony of the web of life on this planet.

This Declaration has been endorsed by hundreds of insightful and eminent individuals and organizations in all parts of the world. It is open to enlightened and ethical individuals and organizations wherever they live and in whatever domain of activity they are engaged so long as they endorse its call to return to the wholeness that characterizes life on Earth and has hallmarked healthy and sustainable civilizations throughout history. We believe that endorsing and supporting this insight and the call based on it could be “the difference that makes the difference”—the subtle factor that opens the heart and the mind of a critical mass of humans to the realization that together we can transform the world, whereas separately we can at best produce noble intentions and pious aspirations.

We are convinced that there is still time to transform our world, and that to transform it we have to transform ourselves—our thinking, our values, our consciousness. Reawakening the divine spark in our heart is the way and the place to begin.