Lawrence Wollersheim on Open Sourcing Spirituality (5): Values and Principles 3

Lawrence continues his inquiry into the values and principles needed as a foundation for an integrative and participatory spirituality.

This concludes our presentation, which however does not exhaust the more rich insights all available if you read the full document here.

11.) On Organization and Distribution

Humanityâ€™s vast knowledge base of spiritual wisdom will be collected, organized and, distributed through free multi-channel delivery systems. This will help adapt the expanded human spiritual wisdom knowledge base for delivery to each individualâ€™s unique learning style, personality, current psychological development level, culture or other isms. This will increase the ease, speed and efficiency with which individuals can assimilate this wisdom to improve their lives.

12.) On Other Open Source Integral Spirituality and Global Wisdom Commons Process Objectives

There are many possible objectives and goals that an open source integral spirituality could and will engage upon.

13). On Ownership, Patents and Trademarks applied to Spiritual Wisdom and the Global Spiritual Commons

Spiritual Wisdom is made freely available by the Ever Present Origin at all times, in all places and, in all circumstances to anyone who seeks and looks for it. Therefore the expanding, current collection of humanityâ€™s spiritual wisdom is always held in trust within the global spiritual commons. This collection is always “owned” by all who will ever use it.

Patents and Trademarks when applied to such a collection of spiritual wisdom are misplaced as only the true author and original creator, the Ever Present Origin, could lay valid claim to such rights. This does not mean that original descriptions of this wisdom cannot be copyrighted as part of a right livelihood, but trying to patent or trademark this spiritual wisdom is contrary to the most fundamental principles of open source spirituality and a global spiritual commons in which all can participate freely and all feel a common ownership.

14.) On No Requirement of Allegiance

There is no denominational or, authoritative religious book or authoritative religious personality ecclesial authority allegiance required to participate in open source spirituality and to help expand the global spiritual commons. In fact, any of the preceding allegiance requirements would be counter to the nature of an open co-creation of a global spiritual commons. The only participant allegiance of open source spirituality co-creators should be towards including all spiritual wisdom and helping to delineate the most universal spiritual wisdom.

15.) On Expanding our Common Core of Moral Values

The worldâ€™s major religions already share a common core of moral values such as justice, compassion, mercy, love and kindness. Expanding the global spiritual commons through an open source collaboration holds the promise of disclosing new common values and finding new ways for the worldâ€™s great religions to work together from those common moral values to collectively resolve the greatest problems the world faces today, such as a sustainable environment and a place where people were safe from the threats of war and injustice.

16.) On the Pathologies and Abuses of Religion

An Open Source Integral Spirituality that will help expand the global spiritual commons will need to confront and deal with the issues of the pathologies and abuses of religion within its knowledge base in a forthright and honest way. For many of the estimated 30% of the population that calls itself spiritual, but not religious the very word religion creates an unpleasant and aversive reaction. One does not have to go back in history very far to see the pathologies, excesses and abuses of religion that are still occurring in many places today.

Doing everything possible to deal with and educate about the pathologies and abuses of past religions and the critical spiritual safeguards that are necessary to prevent them from occurring in our new religion again is a natural aspect of the global spiritual commons work. Some, but by no means all of the pathologies of institutionalized religion that the global spiritual commons will eventually have to address are: fixation of beliefs; establishment of oppressive ecclesiastical authority; religious fundamentalism; tendency to standardize and fossilize truth; diversion of religion from the service of the Divine to the service of the church; fund raising focus in place of a humble spiritual service focus; creating discriminatory religious castes; becoming an intolerant judge of orthodoxy; creation of the aristocratic “chosen-people” attitude; sexual and financial abuse of members, undue psycho/spiritual influence or coercive influence over members negating or debilitating their ability to exercise spiritual free will; fostering of false and exaggerated ideas of sacredness; routinizing of religion; accepting religious symbols and ceremonies in place of authentic direct spiritual experience of and with the Divine, using blind or absolutist faith to override proper faith balance with rationality or scientific facts; preventing or slowing members progressing through Fowlerâ€™s natural stages of spiritual growth ; tendency to form sects and competitive divisions; petrification of meditation/worship; venerating the past while ignoring present demands; failure to make up-to-date interpretations of religionâ€™s messages; entanglement with functions of secular institutions; inclination of leaders to become administrators instead of ministers; accumulation of vested interests toward increased secularization; failing to hold the interest of adventurous youth and losing the hope renewing wisdom from ongoing personal direct spiritual experience with the Divine.

5 Comments

James Burke March 18, 2008 at 11:56 pm

To Atheists reading this post, when they read it they will either skip it, having seen the word ‘spiritual’, or may go ‘blah’ when they read about a spiritual commons or hear that mentioned about this thing called an ‘Ever Present Origin’. They might wander if you are referring to some sort of unhackable ‘author’. How would you reframe or get more specific with the language used above, to make yourself understood to a person who is an atheist? It might seem kind of strange with the disease metaphor, pathologies of thought, etc. Not to say that it doesn’t have some kind of logic.

Michel Bauwens March 20, 2008 at 2:10 pm

Hi James,

I think there are two kinds of atheists, the traditional anti-clerical one, a product of the 19th century, but also the open-minded post-secular ones, who can distinguish between belief systems and real experience of the extra-cognitive (or whatever name you want to give to it). Lawrence’s approach, an open inquiry without pre-set belief system, should be attractive to the latter type. Of course, the language used does require a minimum of spiritual culture, but I think that the capacity to make minimal necessary distinctions is required in any field of serious practice.

As one of my other selves would remark: serious spiritual search is not for sissies.

Michel

james March 21, 2008 at 11:23 am

Hi Michel,
Replying to you comment above, I’m referring to a group of friends who i would consider in the geek/coder community, who whenever i use the word, “spirit”, or anything even hinting at some form of religion or reference to deep spiritual truths, i see eyes glazing over(it’s happened many times, even when i have clearly outlined anti-guru techniques for sourcing a shared understanding of truth, and collective knowledge gathering a la -blogging, wikis, etc). I would love to build a bridge between the languages of integral and athiest/dawkins reading public to try and find common ground. You outline that in your comment above, but i think you assume too much, that this public will read for instance 4 blogposts on integral spiritual approaches, without skipping. Can we have a taker on coming up with a hybrid approach? Can anyone explain integral spirituality without using the word ‘spirit’ or ‘Ever Present Origin’? Perhaps a history or atheism, a citation of shared approaches of inquiry, and where this could lead? Address where taking the dawkins route fits into great dialogue on religion and where integral comes into this? Something on these lines.

Michel Bauwens March 22, 2008 at 5:40 am

Hi James,

I rarely use spirit myself in daily language, except of course when I’m writing or speaking to an audience specifically interested in a dedicated search in that direction. Otherwise, my take is that everybody is ‘spiritual’, and that atheism is a spiritual tradition like the others, with its specific answers on our place in the universe. I think a proper focus is not on any formal acknowledgement of spiritual vocabulary, but on the ethical engagement for a better world and how this plays out in real life for all of us. True spirit expresses itself in our consideration and care for others, nothing else. This being said, I do find Dawkins very reductionist in his approaches, both in terms of selfish genes and in terms of his attitude to religion, which really seems directed at christian fundamentalism, but uses a too broad brush to categorise all relition/spirituality under the same superficial condenmation. Spirituality for me is nothing else than a set of psycho-physical processes which discloses human potential, and they work without belief system. The efficiency and results of meditation, yoga, tantra or whatever other practice, can be felt/experienced outside of the belief systems in which it is embedded, and would enrich any atheist full understanding of what it means to be a human in the world. But again, if there is no interest for such things, and the ethical value and practice is present, then I do not see that as a problem. Lawrence’s language is ostentable not geared towards this crowd, but to the larger realm of ‘cultural creatives’, which according to Paul Ray, number one quarter of the western population. I would like to call these people both post-religious and post-secular, but open to spiritual concerns.

Dave Trowbridge March 22, 2008 at 7:11 pm

I have struggled for some time with how to describe what it means to me to be a Quaker when people ask. It never occurred to me to think of it as “open-source spirituality,” but that’s precisely what liberal Quakerism is. Much of what Wollersheim discusses is core to our understanding of spirituality in a tradition that goes back 350 years. For instance, his statement that “[e]very mentally sound person already possesses the internal means to be their own highest spiritual authority for discerning spiritual truth for their own spiritual path” is precisely what George Fox insisted on, and is still central to the liberal branch of Quakerism.

For some ideas on how to talk about spirituality without reference to “spirit” or other terms with which atheists may be uncomfortable, I recommend Godless for God’s Sake, a collection of essays by non-Theist Friends who represent a diverse range of nontheist viewpoints, including agnosticism, atheism, humanism, naturalism and nonrealism.

5 Comments →

James Burke March 18, 2008 at 11:56 pm
To Atheists reading this post, when they read it they will either skip it, having seen the word ‘spiritual’, or may go ‘blah’ when they read about a spiritual commons or hear that mentioned about this thing called an ‘Ever Present Origin’. They might wander if you are referring to some sort of unhackable ‘author’. How would you reframe or get more specific with the language used above, to make yourself understood to a person who is an atheist? It might seem kind of strange with the disease metaphor, pathologies of thought, etc. Not to say that it doesn’t have some kind of logic.
Michel Bauwens March 20, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Hi James,
I think there are two kinds of atheists, the traditional anti-clerical one, a product of the 19th century, but also the open-minded post-secular ones, who can distinguish between belief systems and real experience of the extra-cognitive (or whatever name you want to give to it). Lawrence’s approach, an open inquiry without pre-set belief system, should be attractive to the latter type. Of course, the language used does require a minimum of spiritual culture, but I think that the capacity to make minimal necessary distinctions is required in any field of serious practice.
As one of my other selves would remark: serious spiritual search is not for sissies.
Michel
james March 21, 2008 at 11:23 am
Hi Michel,
Replying to you comment above, I’m referring to a group of friends who i would consider in the geek/coder community, who whenever i use the word, “spirit”, or anything even hinting at some form of religion or reference to deep spiritual truths, i see eyes glazing over(it’s happened many times, even when i have clearly outlined anti-guru techniques for sourcing a shared understanding of truth, and collective knowledge gathering a la -blogging, wikis, etc). I would love to build a bridge between the languages of integral and athiest/dawkins reading public to try and find common ground. You outline that in your comment above, but i think you assume too much, that this public will read for instance 4 blogposts on integral spiritual approaches, without skipping. Can we have a taker on coming up with a hybrid approach? Can anyone explain integral spirituality without using the word ‘spirit’ or ‘Ever Present Origin’? Perhaps a history or atheism, a citation of shared approaches of inquiry, and where this could lead? Address where taking the dawkins route fits into great dialogue on religion and where integral comes into this? Something on these lines.
Michel Bauwens March 22, 2008 at 5:40 am
Hi James,
I rarely use spirit myself in daily language, except of course when I’m writing or speaking to an audience specifically interested in a dedicated search in that direction. Otherwise, my take is that everybody is ‘spiritual’, and that atheism is a spiritual tradition like the others, with its specific answers on our place in the universe. I think a proper focus is not on any formal acknowledgement of spiritual vocabulary, but on the ethical engagement for a better world and how this plays out in real life for all of us. True spirit expresses itself in our consideration and care for others, nothing else. This being said, I do find Dawkins very reductionist in his approaches, both in terms of selfish genes and in terms of his attitude to religion, which really seems directed at christian fundamentalism, but uses a too broad brush to categorise all relition/spirituality under the same superficial condenmation. Spirituality for me is nothing else than a set of psycho-physical processes which discloses human potential, and they work without belief system. The efficiency and results of meditation, yoga, tantra or whatever other practice, can be felt/experienced outside of the belief systems in which it is embedded, and would enrich any atheist full understanding of what it means to be a human in the world. But again, if there is no interest for such things, and the ethical value and practice is present, then I do not see that as a problem. Lawrence’s language is ostentable not geared towards this crowd, but to the larger realm of ‘cultural creatives’, which according to Paul Ray, number one quarter of the western population. I would like to call these people both post-religious and post-secular, but open to spiritual concerns.
Dave Trowbridge March 22, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I have struggled for some time with how to describe what it means to me to be a Quaker when people ask. It never occurred to me to think of it as “open-source spirituality,” but that’s precisely what liberal Quakerism is. Much of what Wollersheim discusses is core to our understanding of spirituality in a tradition that goes back 350 years. For instance, his statement that “[e]very mentally sound person already possesses the internal means to be their own highest spiritual authority for discerning spiritual truth for their own spiritual path” is precisely what George Fox insisted on, and is still central to the liberal branch of Quakerism.
For some ideas on how to talk about spirituality without reference to “spirit” or other terms with which atheists may be uncomfortable, I recommend Godless for God’s Sake, a collection of essays by non-Theist Friends who represent a diverse range of nontheist viewpoints, including agnosticism, atheism, humanism, naturalism and nonrealism.