Applications

What applications can be devised to capitalize on what we learn by looking for global consciousness? We see the world as deeply divided into haves and nots, powerful and weak, rich and poor, loved and lost, blessed and bereft. What would better balance do for the world? The answers have become terribly important, and it is time to look for the questions that will elicit applications to redress pain and cure the diseases of power and corruption, overpowering lust and unconscionable greed. No one can promise a rose garden, but the will of a global consciousness can surely move masses to insist on change, just as the compassion of millions brings patterns into being from the material of chaos.

In the inaugural issue of Journal of Consciousness Studies, Harman (1994) wrote: "The question of what worldview is fit to guide personal and societal decisions may well be the most critical question of our generation."   Which is more likely to ensure our survival as a species? The belief that what is ultimately real is worthless "dust" -- a multitude of fundamental particles or a multitude of property-instantiating space-time points? Or the belief that what is ultimately real is -- at once -- a unitary, all-constituting substance (sat), an all-containing consciousness (chit), and (objectively speaking) the quintessence of quality and value, ananda? I am convinced that the latter inspires the saner attitudes.

-- Ulrich Mohrhoff