REFLECTIONS ON THE FUJI DECLARATION

AWAKENING THE DIVINE SPARK IN THE SPIRIT OF HUMANITY

For a Civilization of Oneness with Diversity on Planet Earth

Our ways of engaging mind, body and soul require more of each of us as we prepare for the emerging future. Greater awareness and higher consciousness are needed to face the current challenges of a global community. We need to reimage the world moving from scarcity to sustainability and dignity for all. Humanity requires all of us to reflect and act with broadened compassion for each other, all organisms and the Earth.

Our current actions are causing more than 24 billion tons of the Earth’s soil to be “lost every year, due mainly to erosion, over-grazing, pollution and natural disasters”. This limits our capacity to feed the global population. More than one out of ten people on the planet go to bed hungry. Reversing these trends requires stopping erosion and making the world’s available arable land productive in ways that current conflicts and limited access to the poor has not allowed. Striving for greater climate and environmental resilience is a matter of urgency. Access to land rights to many of the poor of the world is needed to engage them as stewards of sustainability. Recognition of climate change in our global awareness is needed to mitigate and adapt to the disturbances that are emerging.

What is our true nature?

As we connect to our true nature, authentic leadership grounded in respect for humanity and Mother Nature will guide our path forward. Peace Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai wrote in her autobiography Unbowed “I profoundly appreciated the wisdom of my people, and how generations of women had passed on to their daughters the cultural tradition of leaving the fig trees in place…People in that region had been spared landslides, as the strong roots of the fig trees held the soil together in the steep mountains. They also had abundant, clean water. But by the early 1970s, landslides were becoming common and sources of clean water for drinking were becoming scare.” As life scientists explore the DNA of the infinitely small life communities (microbiomes), we are discovering that the microbial biodiversity present in our bodies and our environments are inextricably linked to healthy bodies and healthy soils. As we deplete our environment, sources of new medicines are disappearing before they are identified, our capacity to produce safe and abundant food is being compromised and the rich diversity that is present in nature is being lost, preventing us from addressing chemical pollution challenges through biocatalytic processes that are not harmful to nature. Harnessing the world’s biodiversity can catalyze innovations that transform how we live. One example is the production of blue petroleum from columns of microalgae that feed on industrial waste. Innovations like this can loop waste streams into productive sustainable ecosystem driven economies that could ultimately make the word waste obsolete.

Our ancestors looked up to the stars to find their way. We now know that both the infinitely small and the infinitely big are full of mysteries that can help us navigate humanity to sustainable prosperity for all, including the health of our planet. Our ancestors used collective dreaming to tap into the infinite wisdom of all ages, today we can vision, commit and connect to nurture productive ecosystems toward oneness and harmony in and through diversity. We can tap into the ways of our ancestors as well as use all the technological innovations that have exponentially increased our capacity to mobilize resources that support partnerships where sharing, listening and learning for the greater good are prioritized. The time has come for the enlightened feminine and masculine to join in each of us for reflection, action and guidance in our decision-making processes.

What is the purpose of our existence?

Peace on Earth will not come without great inner struggle. My peace will not come as long as it does not also embrace another’s peace. Expanding our capacity for compassion and transmuting our collective suffering is urgently needed. Enabling peace to prevail on Earth will require each of us to hold more light, to shine light in the darkest corners so the journey from our minds to our hearts does not feel so daunting. This collective process will increase the consciousness we bring to everything we do, moving us away from reactivity to active co-creation grounded in reflection.

Peace will come when blame and retribution are replaced by conscious and responsible living. Freedom and power will grow as we refuse to act small because of fear and embrace our greatest selves as authentic possibilities in the unfolding present and future. Humility and service to humankind needs to guide this expansion so our egos (self-identity) serve the ambition of greater peace and at minimum do not persist in the form of rigid barriers and inflated self-importance.

Science is weaving a vision of the web of life we can no longer deny. The full potential of the human spirit is yearning to be embodied. The ways we have deprived ourselves of individual potential is reflected in the many who are denied even the basic dignities of food, shelter, safety, compassion and education.  Realizing our own fullest potential and realizing the dignity of others are threads of the same web.

Toward a new civilization

As we emulate natural ecosystems, where biodiversity increases community strength and resilience, we bring diverse sets of knowledge and capacity for action together. Only then can we blaze towards a new civilization forged in the truth and highest purpose each of us brings as members of humanity.

In any multicellular organisms, cells communicate through membranes to send signals and share information, transport molecules that build health and wholeness. As we see ourselves as part of the larger system that is humanity, we can become the cellular vessels that lead us to wholeness and sustainability – for ourselves and for the coming generations.

Multidisciplinary teams are essential in ever changing environments. Just as nature created an amazing biodiversity that would endure and thrive through the many challenges of times, we can collectively contribute to a new and resilient civilization that serves the rise of global consciousness.  According to Confucius “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it”.

The paradigm of the new civilization

A culture that values everyone and everything will find ways to use all our strengths, will hold empathy for all our weaknesses, will keep us accountable for the gaps in our actions, and will remain open to the vulnerability and grace of knowing that we can only make it in the long run if we remember we are in it together as active co-creators with the universe. Let us aspire to a new civilization where we value beauty in everyone and everything, where we contribute to a global emerging wisdom in a way that pays tribute to the words of philosopher, paleontologist and geologist Pierre Teilhard De Chardin from The Making of a Mind: Letters From a Soldier-Priest 1914-1919 “The future is more beautiful than all the pasts.”

We, as individuals responsible for our and our children’s future, hereby declare that:

We affirm that we will plant seeds of hope in our hearts and on Earth, so that from the darkest corners of our hearts and the depth of the Earth’s soils, we will nurture humanity and biodiversity in ways that capture more light through photosynthesis, knowledge and love centered action.

We commit to nurture enabling ecosystems and enhance our interconnectedness in urban, rural, aqueous and remote areas that re-image scarcity to sustainable prosperity for humanity and the Earth.

We commit to bringing all of humanity out of the internal and outer prisons created and maintained through our conscious and unconscious efforts. We commit to ending the  misuse of any human (child or adult) being beyond their consent in ways that strip them of their dignity. We commit to bringing freedom to the hearts and minds of all humanity in ways that are responsible and serve global peace.

We pledge to cultivate authentic and transformational leadership, to inspire and enhance efforts for peace, dignity, and prosperity, and to contribute to the flourishing of humanity and our planet.