|
STEPPING INTO THE FUTURE
At the beginning of this book I asked you to join me on a metaphorical journey. Now we are almost at the end of that trail. Before we part company I would like to leave you with a few more thoughts to ponder upon and take with you as we progress on our separate ways.
Think back to the middle ages when the only source of artificial light was a naked flame. Can you imagine how the rest of the world would have considered your state of mind if you had predicted that in the future, with a flick of the finger, it would be possible not to light just a single room, or a single building, but an entire city? The likelihood is that you would be regarded as a witch or insane.
In the past fifty years we have seen the development of inventions that would have been unimaginable to previous generations. These advances have not been accompanied by an increase in the size of our brains which have remained the same for the past several thousand years. They have been made possible by advances in the manner in which we use them. One of the most remarkable is how, with the aid of computers and communication systems, we now store, access and utilise information. The collective use of our mental powers has been termed the global brain.
Extension is in the use, but not in the size, of our brains, coupled with the electronic devices we have created, has dramatically changed the way we live.
I now pose a question. Are there also spiritual changes taking place in our lives that are equally transforming but not so obvious?
I ask this question because throughout man’s history there have been those who have maintained that behind the material world there lies a spiritual reality which permeates and unites all people, all life and all matter. An outspoken advocate of such beliefs is Eileen Caddy* who co-founded a community based on spiritual values at Findhorn on the Moray Firth in Scotland where, coincidentally there was, and still is, a flourishing population of dolphins.
The Findhorn community was established at a time when relatively little consideration was being paid to the effects industrial expansion and the manufacture of ever more products would have on the global environment.
The spiritual leader Sai Baba attracts thousands of followers to his asbram at Dharamsala in India. One of the many outcomes of his teachings has been the establishment of the Human Values Foundation** in 1994. The aim of the charity, which is non-denominational, is to promote the value of love, peace, truth, right conduct and non-violence to young people. To achieve this the foundation runs training courses for teachers. The organisation also publishes a manual and lesson plans that are complimentary to school activities. The methods are similar to those currently used by most primary school teachers. The only one that is less familiar, but is being increasingly used in classrooms, is silent sitting. The purpose of this is to provide a short period of silent reflection during which children may participate in a guided visualisation or be invited to reflect and focus on a particular theme or idea. This helps children to calm down, find a peaceful centred part of themselves and learn how to draw on their own authority for awareness. Experience has shown that by introducing the underlying values of spirituality in this way, students become more aware of the consequences of their actions on themselves and others. This helps them to resolve problems of racism, violence, low achievement and drug abuse which they may be confronted with in school and later in life.
The EHV (Education in Human Values) scheme, as it is called, was initiated by an experienced primary school teacher, June Anton. She related the five core values of EHV to the fingers on her students’ hands. June found it worked particularly well with difficult children.
“A head teacher brought me a boy who had been expelled from two schools. With the help of the children we encouraged him to change his energy from negative to positive. He soon became a wonderful asset to the class”, she reported.
Success like this inspired June Anton to continue developing the concept which is now being used in an increasing number of schools.
Head teacher Christine Hollidge of the All Saints Church of England Primary School near Axminster was delighted with the transformation that took place when she introduced the scheme to her school.. “Within days of using it there was a change. The children loved it”, she told a newspaper reporter. The achievements of her “100 happy and secure pupils” were acknowledged by Ofsted (Official Standards of Education) inspectors who commended the programme in their report following a visit to the school.
The EHV programme is an indication of the changes that are taking place in human consciousness. More and more people are finding out that the material goods they have strived for do not bring the lasting pleasure and satisfaction they anticipated. This situation brings forward the possibility that there is a balancing force controlling our lives that is guiding us away from an ecological disaster.
Here’s an example of what I mean by that force, let’s call it nature, correcting an imbalance. When I was a young schoolboy I was told that the population of Britain was growing at an alarming and uncontrollable rate. Statisticians predicted that to avert starvation more resources would have to be redirected to food production. As a result most workers could expect to be much poorer by the year 2000. Now, due to social changes unforeseeable at that time, exactly the reverse is true. We have a surplus of food. The population of Britain is in decline. And the majority of people are richer than they have ever been.
Scientists are now predicting that the growth of consumption of the world’s resources at the present rate is not sustainable. So in affluent countries like the USA and Great Britain is there a movement towards a less consumer based, more spiritual way of life? If this is the case, is this nature’s way of resolving this latest human dilemma? And if this is true, are dolphins showing us the way?
Some people believe that as dolphins have a high level of spiritual awareness*. This in turn has given rise to the concept of a global dolphin consciousness that some humans can tune into. If this is so then dolphins could indeed be the benign guides to a more spiritual future in which there is no sectarian rivalry that many are searching for.
Now let us consider the young who are coming into a world in which global communication and mobile phones are part of normal everyday life. Via the world wide web they have virtually instant access to vast storehouses of knowledge. Youngsters are developing and expanding their brain power in ways which would have been impossible a few years ago. As we currently use only a tiny part of our mental potential this expansion will continue into the future, in directions which at present we cannot possibly foresee.
Here’s another point to ponder upon. A revolution in education began in Britain in the 1960’s with the establishment of the Open University. This made higher education accessible to students of all backgrounds, of all ages, in all parts of the country. Students seldom, if ever, saw their tutors. Exchanges were made by written correspondence. More recently books have been largely replaced by computer disks and written letters by e-mails. This has given tutors and examiners the opportunity to appraise the work of their students whilst they themselves reside in a location of their choice which does not have to be within commuting distance of the headquarters of the Open University, which is based at Milton Keynes.
Of course the face-to-face learning that takes place in a classroom remains as important as ever for very young pupils. Even so, the communications revolution is percolating into schools. The physical handing-in of work is becoming a thing of the past for older students who do their homework on a computer. They then e-mail their worksheets to their teachers who mark them on their computers and then return them electronically. At the same time Teleworking, i.e. working at home instead of travelling to a central place of work, is expanding rapidly. This cuts down on traffic congestion and pollution. It is also giving rise to a redistribution of the population with the more affluent sections of society having their main homes in the country plus a smaller base for occasional use in the city.
Given this situation further changes in education are inevitable. Some parents are asking for more all-embracing methods of teaching that take into consideration their lifestyles as well as the needs and demands of their children, some of whom are expressing their disquiet by outright unsociable behaviour inside and outside school. Shizuko Ouwehand has proposed that in future when assessing youngsters, especially those who are difficult to manage, we should consider some of them at least, as having special capabilities as well as special needs. Who knows, perhaps they are the ones who are trying to show us how to ascend to higher spiritual planes. We shall never know if this is the case if we don’t open our minds to such a possibility.
The human race is now in the throes of a giant evolutionary step in which brain power has taken over from the brawn power needed for survival in earlier generations. In the immediate future we shall continue to expand the use of our brains. As we propel ourselves into this new and exciting era I suggest we make time to show the up and coming generations what a wonderful planet they are living on. We should tell them about the wonder of romance and falling in love and the value of making spaces in their lives to dream. We should point out that there is beauty in words and language. Writing fairy stories is more important for the human spirit than creating electronic data manuals. At the same time we can sow a few thought seeds in their fertile minds about how they might care for and enrich the planet before they pass it on to their children.
- THE END -
|
