It sounds so easy; we just ride the stage escalator to Integral and Spiritual – to peace and happiness. Actually, like the birth of a child, the birth of a new stage requires blood, sweat and tears.
    Today we have terrorism, famine, AIDS, genocide, war, racists, judgmental fundamentalists, greedy executives, avaricious corporations, environmental rape, global warming, huge wealth inequalities, angry gangs and poverty even in rich countries — as well as angry tree huggers, social activists, and anti-globalists.
    Globalization itself, which I suggest will increase global wealth and help reduce these problems, causes enormous disruptions and changes: lost jobs in America; the inner turmoil in values when a Chinese peasant moves to a city; the sense of betrayal and frustration of the Islamic middle east; or the use of modern technology to murder tribal rivals or even blackmail the world.

The Pull and Push Forces that can help the transition.

Change always incurs pain and stress. People do not let go of their established ideas or positions easily. It took centuries of blood for democracy to replace autocracy in Europe. But there are some forces that can help with the transition.
    The mystics say mankind connects heaven and earth. To open to a new stage we can benefit from both these forces:

1) Push from below. Growth in consciousness is supported by the ratchet effect of external manifestations like technology and economics that stabilize a culture and resists us falling back into earlier ways of thinking.

2) Pull from above. The attractive pull of our Source (God if you will) for opening to greater creativity and compassion (the evolutionary force).

Let us look at three major challenges and how these forces are helping us meet them:

Inequality. On a purely economic “push from below” basis, inequality is recognized as underutilizing the creativity of a country’s people and dragging down its productivity and growth. The pull of spirit can be seen in a general rise in compassion for the world’s disadvantaged.

Environment. For the first time in history, we are working at the world level to help the environment. Besides the push of economics and survival concerns, many people are starting to care, not just about all the world’s people, but about all the world’s creatures and about the planet as a whole ecosystem — about Gaia. This is a huge shift from prior times. (Hopefully we will take action before the water level rises above our heads!)

Conflict. It is difficult to go to war with someone you trade or work with.  No countries that have McDonald’s franchises have ever gone to war (almost).  A few years ago, the possible loss of outsourcing funds silenced an atomic shoving match between India and Pakistan.
    In places like India or Malaysia or South Korea or Latin America many of these problems have been alleviated in the last half-century. So it is certainly possible they can be resolved elsewhere in the next half-century.
    Increased communications and trade has pushed us to expand our concept of “who is human” and allowed us to open more to our natural compassion for other people.
 

Biggest Challenge.   Our biggest challenge in giving birth to the Integral and Spiritual stages will be in relaxing and opening our own consciousness — stretching of our tightly protected world views and habitual egoic patterns.

Any change causes pain, but resistance to change exacerbates it enormously. For example, on a daily basis I try to help recovering alcoholics and others (and myself) who are suffering (and causing others to suffer) because of their resistance to what has already happened in their world — to what “is”. They complain “My parents did not raise me right” or “Nasty people have done bad things that threaten my safety and happiness” or “My boss is mean” or “People don’t recycle” or “Life (or spouse or government or globalization) is unfair.”
    We clutch our self righteous judgments painfully to our heart — defending them with all the fury of our fearful ego and habitual childhood patterns of behavior.
    My goal is to help these folks (and myself) release their clutched fist and soften and expand their rigid egoic box — to let some space in for their center core of peace and power (some call it God). Then they can act with power and compassion instead of with fear and anger.

What is true on a personal level is also true on a global level. There is a tremendous opportunity for each of us to expand our view.

• If we are an ecologist, humanist, moralist, or spiritual seeker, we can open more to the push from below. We can recognize that we will never have peace if Mexicans are so poor they risk their lives to get a green card; that an Indian engineer or a Chinese laborer or a Indonesian textile worker has as much of a right for a job as an Irish engineer or a Detroit laborer or an African-American textile worker; that the technology led green revolution has given billions of us the gift of life; and that globalization has given Indians, Chinese, and other people in the developing world the right to escape extreme poverty and pursue happiness.  [A few environmentalists have already heard this call — to become pro-technology, pro-growth, pro-human.]

• If we are a globalist, technologist, scientist, or executive we can open more to the pull from above. We can realize that treating workers better and being more open and transparent can pay off in profits and improved corporate health; that we can all cooperate in saving the planet; and that each of us has heard the call of spirit — in a sunset or a redwood cathedral or a child’s smile. [Transparent companies and mindful neuroscientists are a wonderful start.]

• If we are a fundamentalist of any faith, we will have the toughest job and the greatest opportunity: opening both to below, to the benefits of science, technology, and globalization and to above, to a direct experience of compassionate spirit.

It is my fervent hope that we can make this revolutionary transition without the bloodshed of earlier ones; that we will indeed open our minds to a new world view; that:

• The responsible people in rich countries will respond to the opening of labor markets in China and India by re-training their own workers, not clinging to low skill jobs better done by (temporarily) lower cost Asians.

• Our governments, pushed by citizens and NGO’s, will keep the playing fields fair and level and protect our environment from global meltdown.

• The powerful, as they develop to Integral-Rational, will keep the peace and nourish global prosperity, while respecting people and cultures at all earlier stages.

• And we will all open our consciousness to a new more compassionate way of experiencing life and each other.